248 LETTERS TO GILBEBT WHITE 



have considered your Affair as a Trifle, & therefore taken no 

 Pains in it ; Now I really address'd Myself to Divines of all 

 Ranks, that 1 know in this Town or Neighbourhood, & proclaimed 

 the Agr6ments of the Situation &ca, &ca : but it was answer'd 

 that it would be a happy Circumstance for a young Man who 

 wanted a Title, but so precarious & short a Tenure would not 

 do for any of their Acquaintance, for none of them were in the 

 Want specified. I have, I assure you, absolved my Conscience 

 on your Account, & I hope that You will do so too. I am sorry 

 that We shall not meet in London, or indeed elsewhere for a 

 good while, for You are called to London & Oxford. As to the 

 Affair of Election, it was well-understood here & your Eeply 

 considered as a very proper One, 



You give a terrible Description of the Effects of your Cold ; &, 

 indeed You owe Yourself a good deal of Care, for it is an Effect 

 that will easily return. Nevertheless, do not fall into ye Extream 

 of Fear on the other Side, like your Father ; but consider, that 

 by the Account of all the Faculty here, & indeed as seems a 

 natural Consequence of the Peculiarity of our Seasons this 

 winter, Extraordinary appearances of Illness, & new Modes of 

 Suffering have happen'd. My old Master, Dr Burton is gone, & 

 I have a Pocket full of Poetry in three Languages, Some very 

 good. Some middling. None bad. The Chief are from the 

 Masters, as ye Boys did not return 'till ye Day of his Death, 

 & their Hands were not in. 



Pray, when you build, let it be a 'Drawing Room up Stairs, 

 that you may look on the Hanger ; Let it be higher than the 

 present, & let it be sashed. — Monstrous I why this will be a 

 great Expence ! — True, therefore take two Years instead of One 

 to do it in. As You want to decoy your family after You to 

 make Selbourne a Place of Residence, as well as to enjoy it 

 during your own Life, e'en do it in a tempting way. Your 

 Brothers will be rich Men : And You are Yourself the richest 

 Man that I know ; for You are the only Man of my Acquaint- 

 ance that does not want Money. — Stay — I beleive I will except 

 my Uncle ye Bishop. — But I am not so sure of Him as of You. 



May your Hirundines,* as I doubt not, bring in the Spring & 

 Summer of your Fame ! 1 am glad You have entrusted yourself 

 to the Public that You reap your due Honour, Jack's Fauna 

 should follow close. 



I have not read Brydone,t tho' I hear it well spoken of by 



* On 10th Feb. 1774, " An account of the House-Martin or Martlet. In a 

 letter from the Rev. Gilbert White to the Hon. Daines Barrington" was 

 read to the Royal Society, and subsequently printed in Phil. Trans, vol. 

 Ixiv., part i., pp. 196-201. 



+ ** A Tour through Sicily and Malta, in a series of Letters to William 

 Beckford, Esq., of 8ov?erby in Suffolk," by Patrick Brydone, F.R.S., published 

 in 1773. 



