almanack that there had been a fair here in former days on the 1st of 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 of May, because the former day often interfered with wheat harvest. On that day it still continues to be held, and is become a useful mart for cows and calves. Most of the lower housekeepers brew beer against this holiday, which is dutied by the excisemen; 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 dovehouses; and on the hill opposite to the Grange the prior had a warren, as the names of The Coney Crofts and Coney Croft Hanger plainly testify." respecting the tenure or Temple and Norton are Nothing has been said as yet holding of the Selborne estates. manor farms and freehold; as is the manor of Chapel near Oakhanger, and also the estate at Oakhanger House and Blackmoor. The Priory 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 1 Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon for a pigeon-G. W. 2 A warren was an usual appendage to a manor.-G. W. LL 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 burying ground, 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. POEMS. THE INVITATION TO SELBORNE. EE Selborne spreads her boldest beauties The varied valley, and the mountain ground, Of flats, with loads of ornament supplied? Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense, Oft on some evening, sunny, soft, and still, 1 A kind of arbour on the side of a hill.-G. W. |