GILBERT "WHITE. 



Oxford. The Rev. John Bucldand was born in 1769, when 

 White was forty-nine years old. John Buckland died, aged 

 ninety-one, in 1837, when I was eleven years old. It is 

 more than probable, therefore, that my great uncle knew White 

 personally. As John Buckland was contemporary with White 

 twenty-five years, and was nineteen years old when the first 

 edition of White appeared, I can in some measure connect 

 myself with the times of White. When Professor Bell ushered 

 me into White's study, my memory instantly went back to the 

 old uncle's study at Warborough, where I had often played 

 and eaten cakes and taken tea as a child. The old uncle was 

 a simple country parson, and must have lived much in the 

 same style as White did. White's study at Selborne is a plain 

 room, admirably adapted for quiet writing and thought. White's 

 bookcase, in which his books were formerly kept, is still in 

 the study. It is a simple, wooden, close-fronted case, with 

 brass wire netting. On one end is fastened the thermometer 

 by means of which White took his observations. The tube is 

 not inserted into a case, but simply fixed against the wall : a 

 small ivory index is let into the wood-work of the bookcase. 

 There is a thermometer of almost precisely similar character in 

 the study of Newton Valence parsonage. The tradition is that 

 it was fixed up in its present position by Gilbert White himself. 

 Professor Bell told me that White's books had been dispersed, 

 and he knew not where they had gone. I can however indi- 

 cate the titles of some of the books that probably inhabited 

 this case. When my father, the late Dean of Westminster, died, 

 Aug. 14, 1856, a great many of my old uncle's books came to 

 my share. I can therefore state, pretty well for certain, that 

 some of the following books were in White's library at 

 Selborne : 



The Jewel House of Nature, Containing Divers rare and profitable In- 

 ventions, together with sundry new Experiments in the Art of Husbandry. 

 Sold by Elizabeth Alsop, Grub Street, near the Upper Pump, 1653. 



Three Physico-Theological Discoveries, concerning 1st, Primitive Chaos 

 and Creation of the World ; 2nd, The General Deluge, its Causes and Effects ; 

 3rd, .The Dissolution of the World and Future Conflagration. William 

 Innys, Prince's Arms, St. Paul's Church Yard, 1713. 



De Statu Mortuorum et Eesurgentium Tractatus. Autore Thoma Burnetio, 

 S.T.P. Londini, 1727. 



Piscatory Eclogues, an Essay to introduce New Eules and New Characters 

 into Pastoral: 







" Eura mihi et regni placeant in vallibus amnes 

 Flumina, ameiu silvasque inglorius." 



John Brindley, King's Arms, New Bond Street, 1729. 



Physico-Theology, or a Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. 



