302 LETTERS TO GILBERT WHITE 



Health, & preside wth Wisdom in these trying Days, over a 

 very agreeable & respectable Society.* 



My Sister Chapone has been hard set of late, as You will 

 imagine ; but I heard from her last Night & her Account of 

 herself was tolerable ; She is toss'd about wth Eegard to 

 Lodgings, & going into some at a Mr White's a Grocer in Dean 

 Street ; but She hardly thinks that She shall stay there loDg. 



As to what You mention about Kowley's Poems, I wonder 

 80 many long Heads jowl themselves together on a frivolous 

 Subject, which never can be decided, but will bear a fine Length 

 of Altercation. I am rather a Sr Roger de Coverley, & think 

 much may be said on both Sides, & should opine that some were 

 original & some Imitations. You have picked out a good Line 

 to quarrell upon ; and I do not know whether, in that early 

 Age, they would not have call'd Life the Spirit, & not the SoiU. 

 I fling this out as a Tub, when perhaps it is only a Straw. 



Mrs Mulso & my Daughters desire to be kindly remember'd 

 to You & Yours. I do not know whether this will find You 

 at Selbourne or S. Lambeth ; but I do not know that Direction. 

 I beg my Bespects to all your family & am, 



Dear Gil, Your very afifte Friend & faithful! Servt, 



J. Mulso. 



LetUr 196. 

 Bevd Mr White, Winchester. 



Selbourne near Alton, Hants. + at Alton. Apl 6, 1782. 

 Dear Gil : 



I lately learn'd an Event that I think must have 

 interested You a good deal, & that was the Death of Dr Eoman, 

 by which your Curacy of Farringdon must have been hazarded. 

 I have not yet learnt who succeeds, & upon what Footing You 

 now are. 1 think your College might make an Exchange for 

 You, if ye Value of ye Living would compensate the Fellowship 

 & Curacy. Let me hear more of these Matters, & of the State 

 of your Health, & of that of your Family & Neighbours. Is your 

 Nephew John situated advantageously & does he succeed in 

 Business ? 



I presume You are almost in Despair about your Grounds ; 

 for surely our forepart of the Year has been unusually cold, 

 damp, cutting, & unwholesome. I hope at least that You have 

 not found it so in your Person. 



I have now got my four Children together : But Jack returns 

 the Beginning of next week tho' he has been but a few days 



* Dr. John Eveleigh had succeeded Dr. John Olarke as Provost of Oriel 

 College in December, 1781. 



