1744 PEOBATIONARY YEAR 37 



Clark's 'Colleges of Oxford/ "^ states that "the 

 election to fellowships was singularly free from 

 restriction : for most of them there was no limita- 

 tion of birth, locality, or kindred, and no class of 

 junior members had any title to preference." So 

 that it may be reasonably concluded that something 

 considerably greater than a slight modicum of learn- 

 ing was required, even at this time, in the new 

 Fellow of Oriel; who proved to be in after-life a 

 man of scholarly tastes, keeping up his classical 

 knowledge, while he did not permit its claims to 

 exclude the study of history and travel, to say 

 nothing of his devotion to natural history. 



During his probationary year Gilbert White, of 

 course, resided at Oxford, and there he spent the 

 summer of 1744. From this time to the year 1791, 

 two years before Gilbert White's death, a complete 

 series of letters from an Oriel contemporary has been 

 preserved and will be freely quoted from. This 

 correspondent, who continued all his life on terms of 

 sincere friendship with Gilbert White, was John 

 Mulso,t the second son of Thomas Mulso, of Twywell, 

 Northamptonshire, who lived, however, chiefly in 

 London, the representative of a family long settled 

 in that county. Born in 1721, John Mulso was 

 educated at Winchester College, which he left third 

 on the roll in the same year (1740) as Collins the 



* p. 121. 



t Unfortunately the letters from Gilbert White were destroyed after the 

 death of John Mulso. 



