LETTER CC 309 



Order to let you know where I was, & likewise enquir'd in it 

 about your Intentions of visiting S. Lambeth this Year. I reed 

 a very polite & obliging Letter from the Surgeon, in which, tho' 

 he did not trumpet forth his great Gains in his present new 

 Situation, yet he said much of the Agreeableness of it, & of the 

 kind Eeception he had met with in several respectable Families. 

 I was very glad to hear it ; & wish him Success in his Profession, 

 as I dare say he deserves it. I know not how far my having 

 introduced him personally to Mr Wyndham may contribute 

 towards it; Mr Wyndham will leave Cornhampton next Spring 

 that is coming, & resume his Residence at Salisbury. 



I thank You for your family Anecdotes ; it is in ye Style of 

 Friendship, & gives me much Pleasure ; it is indeed a little 

 check'd by ye wonderfuU Formality of your Conclusion of your 

 Letter " Your most humble Servant G. W." which would have 

 sent me, wth my poor Billy, on a freezing Voyage to Arch-Angell 

 round the North Gape of Indifference, if ye Body of your Epistle 

 had not been like your former Self, domestic, obliging, friendly 

 <fe ingenious. 



You have let a Gat out of a Bag, where poor Puss has been 

 mewing so long, that we had almost learn'd to disregard his 

 Cries ; & yet they were not her Love-squallings neither, which 

 are of all Squallings ye most abominable, but her most con- 

 ciliating Purrs & tenderest Mews. Nobody had puzzled us 

 beyond any Riddle.* A Complication of Hands, not one of 

 them like any of your family ; ye London Postmark, the Short- 

 ness of ye Compositions, and some peculiar Circumstances that 

 had happen'd a little before to draw us aside in our Guesses & 

 direct them to another Quarter, kept us totally in ye Dark 'till 

 ye arrival of your last Letter. We had mention'd your Name, 

 led by the Justness of the Composition, the Choice of ye 

 Subjects, & ye Turn of Piety in the Flower Piece : but yet we 

 concluded that it could not be so, & we determined that it had 

 been fabricated at Mr Notts', & carried to, if not written in Town, 

 by a Miss Green, an ingenious Girl, who had been visiting there 

 & was then returned to London ; for we had lately had some 

 Poetry from Houghton & that put us on a wrong Scent. Why 

 You made a Secret of what ought to have been printed in 

 Capitals, I cannot conceive, unless, like Mr Bayes, it was to 

 elevate d surprize. 



Pray what is ye Vehicle in which You collect ye Rain-water, 

 & guage it's Heighth? I think You told me that ye common 

 Rain of the Year measures about 30 or 33 Inches. 



* Under the signature "Nobody" Gilbert White had sent three little 

 pieces of verse : " On the Eainbow," " A Harvest Scene," and lines " On the 

 Early and Late Blowing of the Vernal and Autumnal Crocus," to Mulso's 

 daughters. 



