MEMOIR. M 



said, " Please, sir, I've been and broke a glass." " Broke 

 a glass, Thomas! How did you do that? " " I'll show 

 you, sir." So he went and brought a wine-glass in his 

 hand, which he threw down on the floor, saying, " That's 

 how I broke it, sir." "There, go along, Thomas! you 

 are a great fool," said his master, and then muttered, 

 "And I was as great a one for asking such a foolish 

 question." 



Before closing this memoir it may not be irrelevant to 

 bestow a brief consideration on the subject of his poeti- 

 cal taste, and the manner in which it is manifested in his 

 own verses. That he had formed his judgment on an 

 extensive acquaintance with the best poets of this coun- 

 try, as well as those of ancient Greece and Rome, is evi- 

 denced by his letters to his younger relations; and 

 more particularly in two of those to his nephew Samuel 

 Barker, of a somewhat didactic character, will be found 

 indications of a sound judgment in poetical criticism. 

 There is much that is pleasing in several of his own 

 productions; and I may especially mention the " Invita- 

 tion to Selborne," and with still higher praise his charm- 

 ing " Naturalist's Summer-Evening Walk "*. In an 

 unpublished note by his nephew Edmund, the Vicar of 

 Newton Valence, I find the following high appreciation 

 of this poem by one whose approval was no slight testi- 

 mony to its merits: " Dr. Joseph Warton (head master 

 of Winchester), calling upon me after Gilbert White's 

 death, said to me, ' Mr. White, 1 quite envy your uncle 

 the " Summer-Evening Walk." It is a charming pro- 

 duction; and the classical allusion at the ejad is the hap- 

 piest I know in our language.' ' Dr. Joseph Warton, 

 himself a poet, had been early educated by his father, 

 * See the XXIVth letter to Pennant. 



