262 CORRESPONDENCE OF GILBERT WHITE 



procured in severe winters, & in many lonely situations ; 

 his endeavour to destroy insects on wall-fruit-trees by quick- 

 silver poured into holes bored in their stems ; & his experi- 

 ments to dissolve the stone in human bodies, by, as I think, 

 the juice of onions ; are a few, among many, of those bene- 

 volent & useful pursuits on which his mind was constantly 

 bent. Tho' a man of a Baronet's family, & of one of the best 

 houses in Kent, yet was his Humility so prevalent, that he 

 did not disdain the lowest offices, provided they tended to the 

 good of his fellow creatures. The last act of benevolence in 

 which I saw him employed was, at his rectory of Faringdon, 

 the next parish to this, where I found him in the street with 

 his paint-pot before him, & much busied in painting white 

 with his own hands the tops of the foot-path posts, that his 

 neighbours might not be injured by running against them 

 in the dark. His whole mind seemed replete with experi- 

 ment, which of course gave a tincture & turn to his conver- 

 sation, often somewhat peculiar, but always interesting. He 

 used to lament to my Father, how tedious a task it was to 

 convince men, that sweet air was better than foul, alluding to 

 his ventilators : and once told him, with some degree of emo- 

 tion, that the first time he went on board a ship in harbour at 

 Portsmouth, the officers were rude to him ; & that he verily 

 believed he should never have prevailed to have seen his ven- 

 tilators in use in the royal navy, had not Lord Sandwich *, 

 then first Lord of the Admiralty, abetted his pursuits in a 

 liberal manner, and sent him down to the Commissioners of 

 the dock with letters of recommendation. It should not be 

 forgotten that our friend, under the patronage of Sir Joseph 

 Jekyll f ; was instrumental in procuring the Gin-act, & stop- 



* [John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, born 1718, three times First Lord 

 of the Admiralty, and holder of that office during the very eventful 

 period of Lord North's administration. In his lifetime he was popularly 

 known by the nickname of "Jemmy Twitcher," from a character in 

 Gray's l Beggar's Opera/ but is now best remembered by the group of 

 islands which Cook (whom he greatly encouraged) named after him. 

 He died in 1792. A. N.] 



t [Sir Joseph Jekyll, born 1C64. An eminent Whig "statesman, and 

 Master of the Rolls to George I. Died 1738. A. N.] 



