xxxviii Introduction 



sociologist, he is possessed in anticipation by the modern spirit 

 in every direction. In this respect, it is true, he cannot be named 

 beside his far abler contemporary, Erasmus Darwin : yet while 

 Erasmus Darwin has left behind him great speculations, im- 

 mensely interesting fo the historian of science and pliilosophy, but 

 not to the general reader, Gilbert White has produced a book 

 which will continue to be read for years, both as a model of 

 observation, and as the picture of a man, a place, and an epoch. 

 For White is essentially lovable. We know him as a crony. 

 We can chat with him still, on the slopes of the Hanger, up 

 which he cut the ivalk still known as the Bostal, about the 

 number of British species of willow-wren, the reason for the 

 separation betiveen the sexes of the chaffinch in winter, and the 

 way to worm out field-cricket* from their holes by the gentle per- 

 suasion of a bent of grass-flowers. It is the almost colloquial 

 form of the Letters that gives us this sense of nearness and 

 familiarity. Hardly anywhere else are we transported so 

 frankly into the inner atmosphere of the eighteenth century ; 

 even BoswelFs "Johnson " fails in some respects to come up to 

 the level of this unconscious self-revelntion of the gentle, inquisitive, 

 garrulous country parson. We see him traversing on his cob 

 "that chain of majestic mountains" the Sussex Downs ; we 

 hear him speak with bated breath of the awful heights of Snmt'don 

 and Plinlimmon ; we smile at his na'ive allusions to Spain as a 

 distant and a/most unknnvn kingdom ; we are amused at the 

 curious restrictions of space which are implied in almost all his 

 references to countries other than European, or even to the 

 remoter parts of Europe. Yet the charm of the picture never 

 once diminishes. Indeed, it is just these quaint touches of 

 vanished thought that make the book most readable. " I return 

 you thanks for your account of Cressi Hall ; but recollect, not 

 without regret, that in June 1 746 I was visiting for a week 

 together at Spalding, without ever being told that such a curiosity 

 was just at hand" Murray and Baedeker were then unknown. 



