AND ROBERT MARSHAM. 301 



french*, & remain with great esteem my dear Sir, your most 

 humble & obliged servant, 



R. MARSHAM. 



N.B. you see the mournful power the Hag has over me. 

 Feeling my hand not very shaking, i begin a letter & write 

 'till i am weary ; lay it by, and wait 'till i feel myself willing 

 to write again. So i have sometimes found more than a 

 month slide away, before i seize my pen again. My strong 

 comfort is that nobody suffers by my infirmity but myself. 

 'Tis like drinking; which 'tho' not my weakness, i think very 

 pardonable in those under its influence. Mar. 15. this day 

 Toads sing. I cannot remember a Winter having passed 

 more mildly than the last. 



In the Gent. Magazine of last Feb. is a letter against the 

 torpidity of Swallows. Symptoms point as if it might be 

 written by you. I had the lie about the toad in the block of 

 stone in the Phil. Trans, fairly detected f. But i have also a 

 proof of torpidity of Swallows in Yorkshire, that i cannot 

 doubt. If you wish for the particulars, i will transcribe them 

 for you. Again Adieu. 



LETTER XX. 



WHITE TO MARSHAM. 



Selborne : June 15. 



1793. 



DEAR SIR, 



FROM my long silence You will conclude that Procrastination 

 has been at work, & perhaps not without reason. But that is 

 not all the cause: for I have been annoyed this spring with a 



* [Towards the end of the preceding year Frankfurt had been retaken 

 by the Germans, and the French compelled to recross the Rhine. A. N.] 



t [I am unable to find any reference to this circumstance, nor can Mr. 

 White, the Assistant-Secretary of the Royal Society, who has kindly 

 made search for me, throw any light upon it. A. N.] 



