276 CORRESPONDENCE OF GILBERT WHITE 



harmless pleasing bird than i have seen. We used to have 

 more of them formerly than of late years. I have never heard 

 one sing on the wing. I love the Swallows and H. Martins 

 so well, that i lament the want of their company in Autumn 

 as heartily & as much as i do the warm weather. I should 

 have concluded from your Tortoise's late hiding that the winter 

 would be mild. 



I conclude that you have read Boswell's life of D r Johnson. 

 A friend of- D r Home's (late Bp of Norwich) told me, that 

 his Ldp had read it twice, & was going the 3 d time thro' it ; 

 & said it was the most entertaining Book he ever read. It 

 made me laugh several times; but the banter upon it, 

 in the new Lady's Magazine for Sep r last, made me laugh 

 more heartily. If you love a laugh (which you must do, 

 as you are a wise man) you cannot fail of it by that 

 sketch. 'Tis supposed to be by the Author of the Bath 

 guide*. I took the trouble of transcribing it, in order to 

 bind it with Boswell, as a Supplement. I presume you have 

 seen Grilpin's Book of the views in the new Forest f, & no- 

 ticed his false quotation of Bryden's letter { : where he says 

 the Chesnut on M. Miua is 204 f. in circumf. which he un- 

 luckily writes .Diameter: as if the Tree was not large enough ! 

 Townsend says in his travels in Spain, at Valez, Nightin- 

 gales sing all the year. I wish you would ask your Friend 

 in Spain, if that is true ? 



I know that you do not love Chesnut-trees, but as a good 

 man you are not averse to hearing of some merit in them. 

 The great Land-stuard Mr. Kent , told me 'tother day, that 



* [This piece, however, is not included among the poetical works of 

 Anstey, who wrote 'The New Bath Guide, 'as collected and published by 

 his son in 1808. A. N.] 



t ['Remarks on Forest Scenery, &c.,' by William Gilpin,' 2 vols. 

 London: 1791 (vol. i, p. 130). A. N.] 



J [' A Tour through Sicily and Malta. In a series of letters to W. 

 Beckford, Esq., from P. Brydone, F.R.S.' New Edition. 2 vols. Lon- 

 don : 1790 (vol. i. p. 119). A. N.] 



[Nathaniel Kent, " A well-known and highly respectable land and 

 timber surveyor " (London, op. cit. p. 1993). The details given in the text 

 are included by him in a paper (Trans. Soc. Arts, vol. x. p. 31). A. N.] 



