BELL'S EDITION OF " SELBORNE ' 187 



John ; the last was chaplain at Gibraltar, of which place 

 he wrote a zoology that was never printed, and was for 

 many years a correspondent of Linnaeus. Another 

 blemish, to Newton's mind, on the book was the omission, 

 due to what he considered Professor Bell's " prudery," of 

 many interesting letters. The language of the eighteenth 

 century was somewhat more free than that of the nine- 

 teenth, and though White never used expressions which 

 could be called coarse even by the most fastidious, he 

 spoke and wrote openly and naturally in the manner of his 

 time. In spite of protests, Professor Bell omitted many 

 quaint and even amusing passages, lest they should bring 

 a blush to the cheek of the young lady of his day. 



Old Bell has at last brought out his Edn. of " Gilbert 

 White," the second volume of which contains some 

 charming letters and shows him to have been (what I 

 always suspected he was) a naturalist Mr. Pepys. But 

 Bell has been foolishly prudish, and because there were 

 certain expressions rather broader than are nowadays 

 used he cut them out unsparingly. E.g. there was a 

 certain Dr. Chandler, a friend of White's, who being on 

 the Continent at the outbreak of the French Revolution, 

 was driven from pillar to post, but at length with his 

 wife took refuge at Selborne. The first thing the good 

 lady did was to be brought to bed, and dear old G.W. 

 writes to a friend on the event that the Dr. was infinitely 

 diverted because he could not determine in which 

 country of Europe his infant was begotten. This Bell 

 has struck out. I saw the passage in the proof, and 

 begged it might remain ; but to no purpose. The same 

 with a passage in which White, describing the effects of 

 an exceeding cold winter and protracted spring, observes 

 of his attenuated haystacks that it would have been 

 creditable to the last two young ladies he married to 

 their swains had their waists been as thin ! This 

 prudery is disgusting.* 



* Letter to Lord Lilford, February 10, 1878. 



