28 GILBEKT WHITE OF SELBOENE 



of Selborne well described his neighbourhood in the 

 lines in which Ulysses pictures his native Ithaca, 

 which he inserted on the title-page of his *' Natural 

 History " — 



" Tprj-)(^el, dXX^dyaOr) KOvpoTp6c{>os, ovtl eywyc 

 "^Hs yairjs Svvafxat yXvKepiorepov aXXo iSecr^at." * 



Fronting to, and opening upon the little village 

 street, almost opposite the " Plestor " and church, 

 stood a modest house somewhat irregularly built 

 of stone edged with red bricks. This house, ap- 

 parently erected about the end of the seventeenth 

 century, is now known by the name of "Wake's," 

 or " The Wakes." It had at the back a pleasant 

 parlour on the first floor, from whose low window- 

 seats could be seen a garden opening into several 

 little fields ; which, dotted with trees singly and in 

 small clumps, stretched up to the dark and towering 

 beechen Hanger; a charming little park-like territory, 

 the home and playground of the various birds whose 

 history so largely engaged the attention of the 

 philosopher of Selborne. 



Here he spent his boyhood after his parents settled 

 in Selborne in his tenth or eleventh year; and this 

 house, in spite of occasional absences owing to the exi- 

 gencies of school and university and two or three short 

 curacies (to say nothing of his numerous journeys to 

 different parts of England), he never ceased to regard 

 as his much-loved home during his whole life. 



• "A rough but good nursing-mother, nor can I see a sweeter land than this." 



