The Natural History of Selborne

Prospect behind Gilbert White’s house, Selborne

• 1793: March 10, 1793 – The sweet bells at Farnham, heard up the vale of a still evening, is a pleasant circumstance belonging to this situation, not only as occasioning agreeable associations in the mind, & remembrances of the days of my youth, when I once resided in that town: — but also by bringing to one’s recollection many beautiful passages from the poets respecting this tuneable & manly amusement, for which this island is so remarkable. Of these none are more distinguished, & masterly than the following:–
  “Let the village bells as often wont,/
  Come swelling on the breeze, & to the sun/
  Half set, ring merrily their evening round.
  – – – – /
  It is enough for me to hear the sound/
  Of the remote, exhilerating peal,/
  Now dying all away, now faintly heard./
  And now with loud, & musical relapse/
  In mellow changes pouring on the ear.”
  — The Village Curate
• 1792: March 10, 1792 – Bror Benjamin, & wife, & Rebecca dined with us.  White water-wagtail.
• 1790: March 10, 1790 – About this time Charles Etty sailed for Bengal direct, as second mate to the Earl Fitzwilliam India-man: Dundas captain.
• 1789: March 10, 1789 – Mr & Mrs Clement, & three children came.
• 1785: March 10, 1785 – Much beech-woods, & faggots carted home.
• 1783: March 10, 1783 – Vast lavants at Chawton.
• 1778: March 10, 1778 – Titlarks in cages essay to sing.  For want of sun hot-beds languish.  Every matter in field, & garden is very backward.
• 1775: March 10, 1775 – Rooks are very much engaged in the business of nidification: but they do not roost on the their nest-trees ’til some eggs are lain.  Rooks are continually fighting & pulling each other’s nests to pieces: these proceedings are inconsistent with living in such close community.  And yet if a pair offers to build on a single tree, the nest is plundered & demolished at once.  Some rooks roost on their nest-trees.
• 1771: March 10, 1771 – Hard frost, grey, severe wind.  The ground thawed much in the middle of the day.  Rooks build notwithstanding the severe weather.
• 1769: March 10, 1769 – Oats are sown.  Crows build: rooks build.  Ewes & lambs are turned into the what to eat it down.
• 1768: March 10, 1768 – Made the four-light Cucumr bed with 8 cart-loads of dung.  Cucumr blows in male bloom.

Notes
The passage is from The Village Curate by James Hurdis. For more on ‘ringing the changes’ check out the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, complete with sound recordings from dozens of churches, sadly not including Farnham.

Reader John Brouwer de Koning adds a note:

March 10, 1790: Captain James Dundas’ E.I.C. ship Earl Fitzwilliam actually sailed from Portsmouth on March 14, 1790. It returned October 9, 1791. Source:
Google’s ‘A Register of Ships Employed in the Service of the Honorable The United East India Company’.