xlviii MEMOIR. 



promotion of science and the intellectual improvement 

 of mankind. He acquired and he deserved the homage 

 of men of the highest eminence in every branch of 

 knowledge ; and during the long period of his presi- 

 dency of the Royal Society, which he held for forty- two 

 years, he identified himself, with equal energy, dignity, 

 and judgment, with the highest aims and interests of 

 that body. 



But the period of Gilbert White's life with which the 

 most general interest is associated is that which belongs 

 to the origin, progress, and completion of the work on 

 which his fame has for so many years rested, and the 

 interest in which is, at the present moment, as great 

 as when the excitement of novelty, both in design and 

 execution, was attached to it. It is certain that the 

 letters to Pennant, which constitute the bulk of the 

 work, up to the year 1770, including the whole from the 

 10th to the 30th, and probably many, if not all, of the 

 subsequent ones, were written without any view to pub- 

 lication. The first suggestion which we have on record 

 that he should engage in such a work came from Daines 

 Barrington, as is shown in the following passage in the 

 fifth published letter to that gentleman, dated April 

 1770 : " When we meet I shall be glad to have some 

 conversation with you concerning the proposal you 

 make of my drawing up an account of the animals of 

 this neighbourhood. Your partiality towards my small 

 abilities persuades you, I fear, that I am able to do 

 more than is in my power : for it is no small under- 

 taking for a man unsupported and alone to begin a 

 natural history from his own autopsia ! " When once 

 the idea of authorship was generated in his mind he 



