e
the ruins of Cowdray, an ancient Tudor stronghold that was burned in
1793, its walls being now finely overgrown with ivy. Dunford House, near
Midhurst, was the estate presented to Richard Cobden by the "Anti-Corn
Law League."

SELBORNE.

[Illustration: GILBERT WHITE'S HOUSE.]

Crossing from Midhurst over the border into Hampshire, the village of
Selborne is reached, one of the smallest but best known places in
England from the care and minuteness with which Rev. Gilbert White has
described it in his _Natural History of Selborne_. It is a short
distance south-east of Alton and about fifty miles south-west of London,
while beyond the village the chalk-hills rise to a height of three
hundred feet, having a long hanging wood on the brow, known as the
Hanger, made up mainly of beech trees. The village is a single
straggling street three-quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered
valley and running parallel with the Hanger. At each end of Selborne
there rises a small rivulet, the one to the south becoming a branch of
the Arun and flowing into the Channel, while the other is a branch of
the Wey, which falls into the Thames. This is the pleasant little place,
located in a broad parish, that Gilbert White has made famous, writing
of everything concerning it, but more especially of its natural history
and peculiarities of soil, its trees, fruits, and animal life. He was
born at Selborne in 1720, and died there in 1793, in his seventy-third
year. He was the father of English natural history, for much of what he
wrote was equally applicable to other parts of the kingdom. His modest
house, now overgrown with ivy, is one of the most interesting buildings
in the village, and in it they still keep his study about as he left it,
with the close-fronted bookcase protected by brass wire-netting, to
which hangs his thermometer just where he originally placed it. The
house has been little if any altered since he was carried to his last
resting-place. He is described by those who knew him as "a little thin,
prim, upright man," a quiet, unassuming, but very observing country
parson, who occupied his time in watching and recording the habits of
his parishioners, quadruped as well as feathered. At the end of the
garden is still kept his sun-dial, the lawn around which is one of the
softest and most perfect grass carpets in England.

[Illustration: SUN-DIAL IN GILBERT WHITE'S GARDEN.]

[Illustration: SELBORNE CHURCH, FROM THE ALTON RO