CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FAMILY. 165 



We expect Mrs. Etty from Beaconsfiekl every day. Her 

 son Charles, it is to be hoped, will soon return from Bombay. 



Your loving uncle, 



GIL. WHITE. 



Little Tom Clement is visiting at Petersfield, where he 

 plays much at cricket: Tom bats; his grandmother bowls; and 

 his great grandmother watches out!! 



LETTER XLV. 



TO MRS. MARY BARKER. 



Selborne, Oct. 25, 1786. 

 DEAR NIECE, 



I RECEIVED your favour of Oct. 12, and rejoice to hear that 

 my nephew Mr. Barker has made so prudent a choice, and has 

 so fair a prospect of happiness in the matrimonial state. He 

 is to live, I find, at the parsonage house at Whitwell, where I 

 spent three very agreeable months as long ago as the year 

 1742, when I was a very young man. 



Present my respects to y r father, and tell him that the 

 caterpillars of Phalcence devoured all the foliage of our oaks in 

 the bud, and therefore of course there could be no acorns, but 

 that the beeches were loaded with mast, and that I was not 

 unmindful of his injunctions, but have employed people to 

 pick up a quantity of seeds from those trees, which I intend 

 shall be cast into the bushes on the down. We had a wet, 

 cold August and September after a dry spring and hot 

 summer. We have grapes in vast abundance, that were very 

 forward in July ; but they are not so delicately ripened as in 

 some more favourable autumns, tho' now good. The begin- 

 ning of this month deluged all the country, and had like to 

 have blown us all away : the tempests and torrents were 

 dreadful ! From the 4 th to the 11 th of this month inclusive 

 the quantity of rain was 5*04 ! but now we have delicate 

 weather, and a fine wheat season. 



