vm. INTRODUCTION 



resident in King Square Court, Soho, for about thirteen years. 

 Mr. Mulso had married in 1719 a very beautiful woman, Miss 

 Thomas, daughter of Colonel Thomas, an officer of the Guards 

 who was known as " handsome Thomas " ; and her brother, 

 John Thomas, D.D., b. 1696, who became - successively bishop 

 of Peterborough, of Salisbury, and of Winchester, had married 

 Mr. Mulso's sister Susanna, so that there was a double connec- 

 tion between the families : a circumstance which, as will be 

 seen, proved of considerable advantage to the Bishop's nephew, 

 John Mulso. Mr. Mulso's sister, Anne, was married to Dr. 

 Donne, a prebendary of Canterbury, a place we find Mulso 

 visiting very early in the correspondence. The children of 

 Bishop Thomas, who are frequently mentioned in the letters, 

 were three daughters ; the eldest of whom, Susanna, was married 

 to the Eevd. Newton Ogle, who became Dean of Winchester ; 

 the second, Ann, to the Eevd. William Buller, who became Dean, 

 and subsequently Bishop of Exeter ; and the youngest daughter 

 to Captain (afterwards Eear- Admiral Sir) Chaloner Ogle, E.N. 



Mr. Mulso had three children who grew up, besides John 

 Mulso who was his second son, viz. : Thomas, a barrister, who 

 in 1760 married a Miss Prescot (Pressy) ; Edward (Ned) , who 

 held a post in the Excise office, and died a bachelor in 1782 ; 

 and Hester, born 27th October, 1727, who in 1760 was married 

 to Mr. Chapone, an attorney, and ten months afterwards was 

 left a widow. The friend of Eichardson, the novelist, of Dr. 

 Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, and other literary people, Mrs. 

 Chapone was well known in her day as the author of " Letters 

 on the Improvement of the Mind addressed to a Lady," who was 

 John Mulso's eldest daughter. 



Gilbert White's correspondent, who was born on the 16th 

 November, 1721, and therefore rather more than a year younger 

 than his friend, entered Winchester College as a scholar on the 

 foundation in 1734, and left in 1740, being third upon the roll 

 in which William Collins, the poet, v/as first, and Joseph Warton 

 was second. He matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, where 

 his father had been educated, on the 27th November, 1740, a 

 little later than White, who had gone into residence there in 

 April of that year ; and took his B.A. degree on the 6th June, 

 1744, about seven weeks before the commencement of the corre- 

 spondence now published. From a sentence in one of the letters 

 it appears that the friendship commenced in 1741, when Mulso 

 probably first came up to College to reside. 



The circumstances and events of John Mulso's life are very 

 fully detailed in these letters to his intimate friend ; but here 

 it may be said that he died at his prebendal house at Winchester 

 in his 70th year, on the 21st September, 1791, about a year after 

 the death of his wife, who was the daughter of Mr. William 



