294 LETTERS TO GILBERT WHITE 



by a Headach, which grew to great Fury the Day before yester- 

 day at ye Chancellor's Visitation at Waltham, <fe I find that 

 I dare not encounter Schemes, however pleasant to me, without 

 Danger of being a sick Man in a friend's House, & a plague 

 to him & his family. Both Mrs Mulso and Myself long much 

 to see You, & the old Scenes in their State of Improvement. 

 How much of them I could get to see by walking I do not know, 

 as an asthmatic Complaint warns me agst every Eise of a Hill ; 

 but I know I should enjoy what I could get at, & My Young 

 Folks would have conquer'd all Difficulties, & enjoy'd all your 

 Beauties. But this must at present be lost. Age, Infirmity & 

 family Concerns are nearly, I find, as great an Embargo upon 

 our Meeting as the Distance of 300 Miles. But these are Things 

 to which, tho' we do not readily subscribe, yet we must submit. 



I met with little other curious News at the Visitation than 

 that of our Nabob Warden's great Success, who will be worth 

 at least 70,000 by the Death of a Nephew in ye E. Indies. How 

 this will operate upon ye good Man I do not know, but I think 

 he might be as well trusted wth this sudden Accession of Wealth 

 as any Man I know. His Election to ye Wardenship made 

 a very usefull preparatory Tryal of his Temper ; & he became 

 That very well. 



Pray does your Book come out this Winter ? I really cannot 

 hold out any longer. If You spoil the genuine Elegance & neat 

 Simplicity of the original Design, by a Farrago of Antiquities, 

 routed out of the Rusts & Crusts & Frusts of Time, I shall not 

 esteem it so well as I once did ; & so I tell You. Remember 

 that Tom Warton has given ye World too [?two] large Speci- 

 mens of his old Bards & untuneable Harps. Go to ! I 



Farewell, my dear Gil. Receive the affte wishes of all here 

 wth our Thanks for your friendly Invitation ; the non-Acceptance 

 is the Sorrow & Vexation, not the Fault of any of Us, especially of 



Your's ever afiftely 



Comps., etc. J. Mulso. 



Letter 190. 



Reverend Mr White, Winchester. 



Selbourne near Alton, Hants. -{- at Alton. Feb: 11, 1781. 



Dear Gil : 



I had so thoroughly persuaded Myself that I had written 

 to you lately, having thoroughly intended it, that, had not your 

 Letter of the Sixth come to convince me of ye Contrary, I 

 certainly should have waited to hear from You. I have, since 

 ye Receipt of your last been troubled wth a Return of the Pain 

 in my Bowells, and it is not yet gone off. So that I have been 

 little disposed to write Letters, which, if the Occasion would 



