48 LETTERS TO GILBERT WHITE 



they used to be out almost all August. But I shall be more 

 express. I thought I had left j'our Letter at Sunbury, so I can- 

 not say I have as yet mentioned ye Thing to them ; but it is 

 Time enough. I can say nothing for myself yet, except that I 

 am drawn towards Selbourne by ye Cords of a Man. 



Let me hear from You of t'ner ; your Letters are a Belief to 

 me at all times. I hope in God I shall not spend another winter 

 of Celibacy, yet I do not see a Prospect of ye Contrary : I am 

 very sure it is in all Eegards bad for me : yet God knows best. 

 I cannot tell where ye Family will be this Summer, but I am 

 afraid not at Sunbury ; my Father says it is more expensive 

 than London, otherwise He likes it well. Miss Hecky would like 

 Selbourne well, but I don't think You will see Her there : The 

 dear Creatures, as Lovelace in Clarissa says (I hope You read 

 Clarissa) never travell without a Bundle. 



I am called to Dinner, yet I think I feast most when I talk 

 to You : God return your kind Prayers with Interest to Your- 

 self & Family ! to whom my Eespects. 



I am, dear Gil, Your's afifectionately, 



J. Mulso. 



Letter 27. 



King Square Court. 

 Dear Gil, June 6, 1761. 



I have not your Letter to Me by Me, so I cannot speak to 

 particulars. Here are two Schemes proposed, an Oxford & a 

 Hampshire one, but I am a little afraid that You will bring 

 neither of them to bear ; my Father says he cannot come before 

 his Circuit, tho' as I am not commissioned to tell You so, I shall 

 leave ye Formality of bad News to those to whom it belongs to 

 send them ; but these Hints justify my Fears. You are deceiv'd 

 in supposing that my Parish is a Sinecure, it is not even a sine- 

 Plague, for we have furbished up a French Chapel for Sundays, 

 which is so extravagantly hot this Season, & promises such Cold 

 in ye winter that I really think I run a Hazard of my Life in it : ' 

 Indeed my late Indisposition (I am afraid I cannot wth a safe 

 Conscience call it late, for it is in Esse still, tho' that is all) has 

 made me more unequal to ye Extremities of weather than ever 

 I was in my Life ; I am now sore from head to foot wth a Cold 

 in my Muscles got by ye Openess of my Pores, & my Faintness 

 is even to Distemper : so that this Chapell is my Dread. I am 

 in London, in Miss Hecky's Dressing Koom, She is reading 

 Clarissa, on the other Hand lies your Invitation.* — Here I was 



* '• The Invitation to Selborne," verses by Gilbert White. This version 

 appears to differ from that subsequently written, and published after his 

 death by his nephew, John White, in the Third Edition of the " Selborne," 

 1818. 



