iv WHITE'S SELBORNE 



their permanence depending upon the man rather than upon 

 the topic. Or, as Martial has recorded, " the immortality of 

 a book depends upon its having a genius of its own." 



The name of Gilbert White at once brings up a vision of 

 pastoral sights and sounds, the dancing shade of cool beechen 

 groves, the crink of field-crickets and music of echoes, the 

 minstrelsy of birds, and the airy rush of hirundines over 

 glassy meres. And still it is a question whether White is 

 read as widely as is usually supposed, despite the multiplicity 

 of editions that have succeeded the editio princeps. By the 

 " general reader " he is undoubtedly far better known through 

 those who have written concerning him than from a perusal 

 of his own writings. For, though his letters are packed with 

 information, the greater part of which holds as true to-day as 

 it did a century since, and though they have lost none of 

 their scholastic flavor with the lapse of years, it is to be 

 feared that the average person who is not interested in ornith- 

 ology, entomology, and botany is to a large extent unac- 

 quainted with him save by reputation, or at most by a hasty 

 dip into his register. And yet he is to be enjoyed by the 

 layman almost equally as well as by the naturalist; for so 

 simple, yet engaging, is his style that he who runs may read 

 with eminent profit and pleasure. 



Not unmindful of the "Idyllia" of Theocritus and the 

 "Georgics" of Virgil, together with the works of other nat- 

 ure writers who have preceded him, we may term him the 

 founder of the nature school, or school of close observance 

 and minute analysis. No one who has succeeded him has 

 been more precise and fluent in recording the movements 

 of the feathered tribes, or in placing his observations more 

 vividly before the reader. He was sufficient of a scientist to 

 receive through science a valuable aid in his investigations, 

 though his natural receptivity and perceptivity, as distin- 

 guished from mere scientific accomplishments, count for the 

 major share in the work which has immortalized his name. 



Nor are his terse and graceful diction, his quiet humor, and 

 apt citation a less conspicuous factor in the charm of his 

 chronicle, through whose leaves filters the sunlight of 

 Hampshire fields and flicker the shadows of Hampshire 



