Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/329

Rh this money, lent on private security, was in danger of being lost, and the bequest remained in an unsettled state for near twenty years, till 1700; so that little or no advantage was derived from it. About the year 1759 it was again in the utmost danger by the failure of a borrower; but, by prudent management, has since been raised to one hundred pounds stock in the three per cents reduced. The trustees are the vicar and the renters or owners of Temple, Priory, Grange, Blackmore, and Oakhanger-house, for the time being. This gentleman seemed inclined to have put the vicarial premises in a comfortable state; and began by building a solid stone wall round the front court, and another in the lower yard, between that and the neighbouring garden; but was interrupted by death from fulfilling his laudable intentions.

April 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar.

June, 1681. This living was now in such low estimation in Magdalen College that it descended to a junior fellow, Gilbert White, M.A., who was instituted to it in the thirty-first year of his age. At his first coming he ceiled the chancel, and also floored and wainscoted the parlour and hall, which before were paved with stone, and had naked walls; he enlarged the kitchen and brewhouse, and dug a cellar and well; he also built a large new barn in the lower yard, removed the hovels in the front court, which he laid out in walks and borders; and entirely planned the back garden, before a rude field with a stone-pit in the midst of it. By his will he gave and bequeathed “the sum of forty pounds to be laid out in the most necessary repairs of the church; that is, in strengthening and securing such parts as seem decaying and dangerous.” With this sum two large buttresses were erected to support the east end of the south wall of the church, and the gable-end wall of the west end of the south aisle was new built from the ground.

By his will also he gave “one hundred pounds to be laid out on lands; the yearly rents whereof shall be employed in teaching the poor children of Selbourn parish to read and write, and say their prayers and catechism, and to sew and knit;—and be under the direction of his executrix as long as she lives; and, after her, under the direction of such of his children and their issue, as shall