LETTER CCIV 315 



Letter 204. 



Reverend Mr White, Winchester. 



Selbourne near Alton, Hants. + at Alton. Jan: 29, 1784. 



Dear Gil : 



The excessive Frost has given me a sickly Feel, that has 

 confined me, & given me an Indisposition to my Pen, as well as 

 to every thing else ; and I am to ask your Pardon for it, & make 

 it my Excuse, as v^^ell as I can : for indeed it was cruel to have 

 a Child of your's in my keeping, & never tell You how I liked 

 it, and how much it had the Features of it's Father. Yet how 

 could I enjoy the Description of calm & occasionally warm 

 weather,'^ when my very Ideas are petrified with Cold? Have 

 You remember' d any thing so severe & so lasting since the Year 

 1740 ? Ah ! I was better able in that Year to bear it ! But as 

 to yr Poem, I think it super-excellent. You are quite in your 

 Element. I have communicated your Lines to my Sister Chapone, 

 but as She will think wth me, that these will be amongst the 

 Pieces that you will give one day to ye Public, She will not make 

 an improper Use of them, being herself ye Mother of a little 

 Family. Shall I say, that tho' sometimes it has a good Efi'ect 

 enough, & tho' the Use is justified by Milton, Dryden, and 

 Thompson, yet I am not quite reconciled to beginning a Sentence 

 with a Verb. It might perhaps express Haste or Terror, & ye 

 Confusion that is consequent ; but it feels to me formal in a cool 

 Description, where the same Sense can be equally well supported 

 by a more regular Grammar. You have set me right in ye Use 

 of the word Eyrie, which indeed I had thought had not been 

 ye Phrase but for the Nest of an Eagle. I am delighted wth 

 ye whole, and could almost wish for the Return of your Subject, 

 only that it ends, as you make it do, in immoderate Rains & 

 Winds ; to ye latter of which I have a violent Aversion. 



My Daughter Jane thanks You for ye Information about her 

 Print. Hester has been very ill wth the low Feaver, which has 

 been almost epidemical, & sometimes fatal. I thank God, Hester 

 is much better. 



I do not love to hear of ye small, inward Feaver ; it was well 

 enough to have a Hectic Heat when You was young ; but I cannot 

 see by your present poetic Fury but that you may be intitled to 

 an honest burning Feaver, that perspires off in warm Verse, and 

 ends in Fame to ye Doctors & Apothecaries ; I mean ye Printers 

 and Booksellers, that have watched the Crisis & carried your 

 Distemper to it's End. 



I do not know of any young Divine of your Description. 

 Must he reside, or only attend ou Sundays? Jack is housed 



• Gilbert White's verses " On the Dark, Still, Dry, Warm Weather," etc. 



