d a History of London.

Daines Barrington, fourth son of the first Viscount Barrington, was a
year younger than Pennant, and died in 1800. He became Secretary to
Greenwich Hospital, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and President
of the Royal Society. His "Miscellanies," published in 4to in 1781, deal
with questions of Natural History, and of Antiquities, including a paper
first published in 1775 asserting the possibility of approaching the
North Pole. His most valued book was one of "Observations on the more
Ancient Statutes."

H.M.

LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

LETTER I.

The parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county
of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the
county of Surrey; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude
fifty-one, and near mid-way between the towns of Alton and Petersfield.
Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which
are in Sussex, viz., Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from the south and
proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence,
Faringdon, Hartley Mauduit, Great Ward le Ham, Kingsley, Hadleigh,
Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lyffe, and Greatham. The soils of this
district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects.
The high part of the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising
three hundred feet above the village, and is divided into a sheep-down,
the high wood and a long hanging wood, called The Hanger. The covert of
this eminence is altogether _beech_, the most lovely of all forest trees,
whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or
graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing,
park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the
verge of the hill-country, where it begins to break down into the plains,
and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale,
wood-lands, heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east
and east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex Downs, by
Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs round Dorking, and Ryegate in
Surrey, to the north-east, which altogether, with the country beyond
Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline.

At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies the
vill