very spot which tradition has always pointed out as having been the site of the convent kitchen. This clumsy utensil,* whether intended for holy water, or whatever purpose, we were going to procure, but found that the labourers had just broken it in pieces, and carried it out on the highways. The priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a grange, an usual appendage to manerial estates, where the fruits of their lands were stowed and laid up for use, at a time when men took the natural produce of their estates in kind. The mansion of this spot is still called the Grange, and is the manor-house of the convent possessions in this place. The author has conversed with very ancient people who remembered the old original Grange; but it has long given place to a modern farm-house. Magdalen College holds a court-leet and court-baron† in the great wheatbarn of the said Grange, annually, where the president usually superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of the college.‡ The following uncommon presentment at the court is not unworthy of notice. There is on the south side of the king's field (a large common-field, so called) a considerable tumulus, or hillock, now covered with thorns and bushes, and known by the name of Kite's Hill, which is presented, year by year, in court as not ploughed. Why this injunction is still kept up respecting this spot, which is surrounded on all sides by arable land, may be a question not easily solved, since the usage has long survived the knowledge of the intention thereof. We can only suppose that as the prior, besides thurset and pillory, had also furcas, a power of life and death, he might have reserved this little eminence as the place of execution for delinquents. And there is the more * A judicious antiquary who saw this vase, observed, that it possibly might have been a standard measure between the monastery and its tenants. The priory we have mentioned claimed the assize of bread and beer in Selborne manor; and probably the adjustment of dry measures for grain, etc. The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter and Whitsuntide. Owen Oglethorpe, president, etc., an. Edw. Sexti, primo [viz. 1547.] demised to Robert Arden Selborne Grange for twenty years. Rent vili.— Index of Leases. reason to suppose so, since a spot just by is called Gally (Gallows) Hill. The lower part of the village, next the Grange, in which is a pond and a stream, is well known by the name of Gracious Street, an appellation not at all understood. There is a lake in Surrey, near Chobham, called also Gracious Pond; and another, if we mistake not, near Hedleigh, in the county of Hants. This strange denomination we do not at all comprehend, and conclude that it may be a corruption from some Saxon word, itself perhaps forgotten. It has been observed already, that Bishop Tanner was mistaken when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth, "De mercante feria de Seleburne." Selborne never had a chartered fair; the present fair was set up since the year 1681, by a set of jovial fellows, who had found in an old almanack that there had been a fair here in former days on the 1st August; and were desirous to revive so joyous a festival. Against this innovation the vicar set his face, and persisted in crying it down, as the probable occasion of much intemperance. However, the fair prevailed, but was altered to the 29th May, because the former day often interfered with wheatharvest. On that day it still continues to be held, and is become an useful mart for cows and calves. Most of the lower housekeepers brew beer against this holiday, which is dutied by the exciseman, and their becoming victuallers for the day without a license is overlooked. Monasteries enjoyed all sorts of conveniences within themselves. Thus, at the priory, a low and moist situation, there were ponds and stews for their fish ; at the same place also, and at the Grange in Culver Croft, there were dove-houses; and on the hill opposite to the Grange the prior had a warren, as the names of The ConeyCrofts and Coney Croft Hanger plainly testify.† Nothing has been said, as yet, respecting the tenure or holding of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are manor farms, and freeholds; as is the manor of Chapel, near Oakhanger, and also the estate at Oakhanger House and Blackmoor. The priory * Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon for a pigeon. +A warren was an usual appendage to a manor. and grange are leasehold under Magdalen College, for twenty-one years, renewable every seven; all the smaller estates in and round the village are copyhold of inheritance under the college, except the little remains of the Gurdon Manor, which had been of old leased out upon lives, but have been freed of late by their present lord, as fast as those lives have dropped. Selborne seems to have derived much of its prosperity from the near neighbourhood of the priory. For monasteries were of considerable advantage to places where they had their sites and estates, by causing great resort, by procuring markets and fairs, by freeing them from the cruel oppression of forest laws, and by letting their lands at easy rates. But, as soon as the convent was suppressed, the town which it had occasioned began to decline, and the market was less frequented; the rough and sequestered situation gave a check to resort, and the neglected roads rendered it less and less accessible. That it had been a considerable place for size, formerly, appears from the largeness of the church, which much exceeds those of the neighbouring villages; by the ancient extent of the buryingground, which, from human bones occasionally dug up, is found to have been much encroached upon; by giving a name to the hundred; by the old foundations and ornamented stones, and tracery of windows that have been discovered on the north-east side of the village; and by the many vestiges of disused fish-ponds still to be seen around it. For ponds and stews were multiplied in the times of popery, that the affluent might enjoy some variety at their tables on fast days; therefore, the more they abounded the better probably was the condition of the inhabitants. MORE PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE OLD FAMILY Tortoise, OMITTED IN THE NATURAL HISTORY. BECAUSE We call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, and has so much discernment as not to fall down a haha, but to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun; because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour, "scald with safety." He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or amidst the waving forests of an asparagus bed. But, as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the reflection of a fruit-wall; and, though he never has read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth,* he inclines his shell, by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray. Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile; to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay aside; to be imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must preclude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a season of the year (usually the beginning of June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning; and, traversing the garden, examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, through which he will escape if possible; and often has eluded the care of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field. The motives that impel him to undertake these rambles seem to be of the amorous kind; his fancy then becomes intent on sexual attachments, which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn deportment. * Several years ago a book was written entitled "Fruit Walls Improved by Inclining them to the Horizon :" in which the author has shown, by calcula tion, that a much greater number of the rays of the sun will fall on such walls than on those which are perpendicular. |