a river that rises from several springs in the Western parts of Dorsetshire in England, the principal of which is near Evershot; and directing its course almost due west, passes under Frampton-bridge, washes the town of Dorchester, and falls into a bay of the English Channel called Poolehaven, near Weymouth.

FROME-Selwood, a town of Somersetshire in England, 105 miles from London. It is the chief town of this part of the country, which was anciently one great forest called Selwoodshire; and in the latter end of the last century, in those called Frome-Woodlands, there was a considerable gang of money-coins or clippers, of whom many were taken and executed, and their covert laid open. Though the town is bigger than some cities, yet it has only one church; but it has six or seven meeting-houses of Protestant dissenters. The inhabitants are reckoned about 13,000, whose chief manufactory is broad-cloth. About 50 years ago, more wire cards for carding the wool for the spinners were made at this place than in all England besides, which was for the most part supplied with them from hence; for here were no less than 20 master cardmakers, one of whom employed 400 men, women, and children, in that manufactory at one time; so that even children of 7 or 8 years of age could earn half-a-crown a-week. The river here, which abounds with trout, eels, &c., rises in the woodlands; and runs under its stone-bridge towards Bath, on the east side of which it falls into the Avon. This town has been a long time noted for its fine beer, which they keep to a great age, and is generally preferred by the gentry to the wines of France and Portugal. It was governed formerly by a bailiff, and now by two constables of the hundreds of Frome, chosen at the court-leet of the lord of the manor.