MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 



LETTER II. 



FROM THE REV. JOHN LIGHTFOOT TO GILBERT WHITE. 



Uxbridge, Sept. 13, 1773. 

 DEAR SIR, 



I HAVE this summer, in company with Mr. Banks, been 

 making the tour of North and South Wales. I set out in 

 June, and am but lately returned ; this will apologize for my 

 not acknowledging your obliging letter sooner. I owe you 

 many thanks for your repeated and most friendly invitations ; 

 but I know not how we have affronted the Fates that they 

 will not suffer us to have an interview. This summer I have 

 no chance of seeing Hampshire, having enough to tye me by 

 the leg for many months to come. I flatter myself, however, 

 that I shall yet have it in my power to visit Selborne again, 

 and bilk these troublesome Fates, that have so often come be- 

 tween us, which I shall be heartily glad to do, as I hate to be 

 cheated by such jilts. I hope you are of the same mind as 

 myself, and will endeavour to return them the compliment by 

 trying your luck at Uxbridge. I met with our friend Skin- 

 ner at Brecnock in the beginning of August. He talked of 

 paying a visit to his brother at Purley near Reading, about 

 Michaelmas. He uses little exercise, and suffers much from 

 the gout. 



The Dodecatheon meadia is an elegant plant, and singular 

 in its appearance ; it is a native of Virginia and Carolina, and 

 was first named meadia by Mr. Catesby in compliment to Dr. 

 Mead ; but Linnaeus, finding afterwards the old name of Do- 

 decatheon made use of by Pliny for a plant agreeing in de- 

 scription very nearly with this, chose to adopt the ancient 

 name for the generic, and retain the known received name for 

 the trivial, according to a rule laid down in the ' Critica Bo- 

 tanica.' 



Wales in general behaved to us with great politeness. We 

 had fine weather through the whole journey ; we found the 



