GRANT ALLEN'S EDITION 189 



with the issue of the book, makes the reviewer's task 

 peculiarly ungrateful, since with the greatest respect for 

 Mr. Allen, it must be deliberately said that if there were 

 a work off which he ought to have kept his hands it was 

 the "Natural History of Selborne." How little he 

 could understand the author, or enter into his feelings, 

 and it will be admitted that no man can properly edit a 

 book without being imbued by its spirit, may be seen by 

 a passage in his Introduction (p. xxxi) where, wholly 

 unmindful of what is shown by the work itself or the 

 portions of the author's correspondence printed by Bell. 

 Gilbert White is represented as settling down at Sel- 

 borne " to a placid bachelor existence," and " being a 

 celibate Fellow " (how many Fellows were there in those 

 days, and for long after, who were not celibate ?) "he 

 gave himself up almost entirely to his favourate fad of 

 watching the beasts and birds of his native country." If 

 a word could be found to raise a feeling of disgust among 

 the thousands of admirers of Gilbert White, it is that 

 which is above italicised. Who but a vulgarian could 

 conceive of White's lifelong devotion to the study of 

 Natural History being designated a " fad " ? And yet 

 Mr. Allen wrote himself a naturalist ! How much he 

 knew of the methods of observing naturalists in general, 

 and of White's in particular, is shown by another passage 

 in the same Introduction (p. xxxiii). Describing the 

 lawn and garden at Selborne, this editor is pleased to 

 say : " Here the easy-minded Fellow of Oriel and curate 

 of Faringdon could sit in his rustic chair all day long, and 

 observe the birds and beasts as they dropped in to visit 

 him." What the fellowship and curacy have to do with 

 the matter is not apparent, but had Mr. Allen any ex- 

 perience of observational natural history, he would have 

 known that beasts and birds do not " drop in " to visit 

 people sitting all day long in chairs, rustic or otherwise ; 

 while he must have read Gilbert White's writings to very 

 little purpose to think that was the way in which the 

 observations, so inimitably recorded, were taken. There 

 is hardly a bit of armchair work in the whole of them. . . . 



