LETTERS TO GILBERT WHITE 



large Stables with a compleat set of foaming Horses for a Coach 

 that has a prodigious easy Corner : & riding nags that I am 

 in love with : But oh ! Gil. here is a Loss ye most severe that 

 can be • this House had a fine Library, which not faUing by 

 will to the Lady of it, has been sold off, & nothing remams but 

 ye skeleton Cases. I really beheve that my Brain will be moss'd 

 over like our old waUs, for here is very little Company, and 

 those come so seldom that it is all Form & Starch'dness. You 

 know ye Sentiments of a Family are generally pretty much ye 

 same, & consequently few new things struck off or that are 

 very improving, so that I expect to sink under ye Cloud that 

 whilom involv'd this place when it was inhabited by old Monks ; 

 & I vie with them in rotundity already. Yet there is one 

 thing that I have met with in this place, that I own I never met 

 with before, that is, a contented man, the Clergyman of this 

 place has between 50 & threescore pound a year, & has now 

 neither wife, nor child; his appearance at first did not recom- 

 mend him, & his method of chanting in a very strenuous tone 

 ye divine Service made me ready to laugh at him, but as I am 

 now acquainted with ye sincere virtues of ye man, I am all 

 admiration : He is quite Parson Adams, & had like to have 

 lost his Cure by some honest exhortations to a former Lady of 

 this House, but his own Worth rais'd him Friends powerfull 

 enough to support him against her ; He always speaks his mind : 

 He will not accept of any Preferment, & is thankfull for ye 

 affluence in which He lives. Gil : I admire this man, but I can 

 not imitate him in point of Content, You know my Heart on 

 that Subject. — We now & then walk over to Leed's Castle a 

 seat of Major Fairfax, giv'n him by ye Lord his Brother, we 

 visit there, He has furnish'd in high Taste ye rooms thro' ye 

 whole Front, the rest is quite in ye old Castle Taste & is quite 

 romantic, it stands in ye middle of a moat in a pretty little park. 

 This Country is all Hill & Dale, & has every where woods & 

 Groves, they tell me that there is a prodigious Quantity of Game 

 this year, but You know me, how unworthy I am in that respect, 

 tho' Birds bless me for my Ignorance in ye art of murther. 

 the Fox-hunters complain much of what I love, ye Shades; 

 there is no Sport for them in so close a Country. At Sr Edw : 

 Filmer's seat which stands on a Hill, I had a Prospect 30 miles 

 over what He call'd ye Wilds of Kent, but I never saw a Place 

 that seem'd more cultivated & rich. The Road from London to 

 Kent is ye pleasantest in ye world. From Rochester to Maidstone 

 there is almost a continual View of ye Medway, ye Bride of 

 Thames, according to Spencer: I left London with pleasure, 

 tho' I was happy while I was there for I was at all ye Gardens 

 & had the pleasure of meeting Tom Mander at two of them : tell 

 me, for I suppose you know, how that Merchant does, & give 



