200 CORRESPONDENCE OF GILBERT WHITE 



Hamscotj whence a letter says a bundle of anecdotes, &c., re- 

 specting the spectators &c., was sent to London a year or two 

 ago. This is a little episode. Now for Caversham again, 

 whither I went to tea after dining in Reading ; and as I was 

 going in the dusk I w T as accosted in a manner that amused 

 me not a little " Why, it looks very ghastly ; all these mea- 

 dows are quite flooded entirely." From Caversham on Wed- 

 nesday I proceeded to Windsor, and thence next day as far 

 as Kensington, where I met Miss Chase in the street, and ac- 

 cepted an invitation to dinner. I found the family full of 

 joy with the very agreeable news which they had received the 

 day before, as you have probably heard, from the two Mr. 

 Chases in India. Next day I went on to London, had the 

 pleasure of seeing your brother very well in Fleet Street, and, 

 after making several other visits, dined with Mr. Lewis in 

 Frederick's Place, where I had the pleasure of finding him 

 and Mrs. Lewis and abundance of nephews and nieces (for 

 they call me Uncle Churton) very well, and a prospect of an 

 addition to the number very soon. Mr. L. had seen a letter 

 from Mrs. Chandler a few days before ; all well. Having 

 finished my business in town, which was to learn whether Mrs. 

 Winchester was at H. Wycombe, I returned to sleep in the 

 purer air of Kensington, and next day set forward for Wy- 

 combe ; but I had not gone far when I perceived a solitary 

 flake of snow approaching the ground. " Oh!" quoth I, " is 

 this the sport I am to have?" and another and another fea- 

 ther, either from Wales or somewhere else, soon succeeded, 

 and I was as white and fair in my snowy plumes as you 

 please. After riding about ten or a dozen miles, a bit of 

 bread and a glass of brandy, " decus vitas," were no uncom- 

 fortable things; and I got on to Wycombe, the snow still 

 continuing, neither wet nor fatigued. 



I see Whitney's ' Emblems ' are in the Bodleian. Bellen- 

 denus, who published the work which I mentioned, " De tribus 

 luminibus Roman orum," from which Middleton is said to have 

 translated whole pages in his ' Life of Cicero,' published before 

 a small 12 tract which is called ' Ciceronis Princeps;' and 

 this, like the ' Lumina,' is drawn up in the words of Cicero, and 



