188 GILBERT WHITE AND OTHERS 



Later, in answer to a question of Mr. Holt White as to 

 the publication of certain passages in the letters of John 

 Mulso, Gilbert White's contemporary and lifelong friend, 

 he expressed himself to much the same effect :- 



Far be it from me to say what the owner of these 

 letters should or should not print ; of course, I know that 

 men will w r rite many things that should not be printed. 

 I protested most vehemently (only alas ! too late) 

 against certain passages that Wheatly printed for the 

 first time in his Edition of Pepys, which render it im- 

 possible to leave about the volume that contains them. 

 But in my opinion there is nothing in Mulso's letters that 

 might not appear ; there are expressions showing a 

 coarse mind, which I am sure was in great contrast to 

 Gilbert White's, but nothing worse, and if it is said that 

 certain passages have been suppressed people will put a 

 harsher construction on Mulso's character than they 

 would if the passages were in evidence. More than that 

 they will wonder how Gilbert White could live in affec- 

 tionate friendship with such a man, so thai; his character 

 suffers also. Puris omnia pura is a good motto, and if 

 one did not believe in it one has no business to teach 

 Zoology. 



No doubt that people in the 18th century did things 

 openly that they are now ashamed of doing, and also 

 that ideas of what a parson might or might not do were 

 then very different from what they are at the present 

 day ; but I greatly doubt our being better than our fore- 

 fathers, who did not brag of their virtues as we do ; 

 indeed, I should think that Pharisaism had greatly in- 

 creased in the last fifty years.* 



There were other editions of Gilbert White's book for 

 which Newton could find no good words to say, and 

 among the worst offenders was the late Mr. Grant Allen. 



. . . The death of the editor, which almost coincided 



* Letter to R. Holt-White, November 17, 1906. 



