xxviii MEMOIR. 



celebrated William Whiston, who died at Lyndon in 

 1752, at the age of 85. Mr. Barker's father was a man 

 of deep learning, well known as a profound Hebrew 

 scholar and Greek critic ; and Mr. Thomas Barker was 

 himself possessed of considerable literary and scientific 

 acquirements. Mrs. Barker had one son, Samuel, arid 

 three daughters. They were frequent correspondents of 

 Gilbert White ; and many of his letters to them will be 

 found in the second volume, and are very pleasing and 

 interesting. Those to his nephew, extending from his 

 boyhood to within a short time of his uncle's death, are 

 remarkable for the variety of information and the pure 

 classical taste which characterize them. One of the most 

 pleasing of his poems, the ' Invitation to Selborne,' was 

 addressed to him. Mr. Barker died in 1803, in the 

 88th year of his age. 



The daughters, as appears from their uncle's letters, 

 were skilful in music, and played well on the harpsi- 

 chord; and it was in a letter to Mary Barker that he 

 first quoted that favourite passage on the effects of music, 

 from Gassendi's 'Life of Peiresc/ which occurs in Letter 

 LVI. to Daines Barrington, and which I also find quoted, 

 with similar remarks, in one of his letters to the Rev. 

 Mr. Churton. Mrs. Barker died in 1801. 



Samuel Barker married Miss Haggitt, a young lady of 

 Northamptonshire, which event he announced in a letter 

 to his uncle in July 1786. All his letters, several of 

 which will be found in the correspondence, indicate how 

 much he was imbued with the same tastes and pursuits 

 as his relative, to whose influence he doubtless, in a great 



William Whiston's hand, and I imagine the real name was Barker, and 

 it was Latinized Bercarius. ... In the same hand I find William le 

 Barker mentioned in Eutland as long ago as Edward the first's time." 



