64 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBOENE 1751 



the planting of trees and shrubs, and alterations 

 about the premises at Selborne, which, during his 

 whole life, its author delighted to improve and em- 

 bellish. Later there are notices of experiments and 

 natural history observations, of visits to friends, 

 and occasionally of family events. With the ex- 

 ception of a very few entries by his father and 

 brothers Thomas and John, and at a later date by 

 his old servant Thomas Hoar, the journal is in the 

 handwriting of Gilbert White. 



Those who possess Mr. Bell's edition of ' The 

 Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne' will 

 find in vol. ii. pp. 348-59 a reproduction of part 

 of the Garden Kalendar for the year 1759."^ 



On June 6th, 1751, Mulso writes to Oxford from 

 " London, in Miss Hecky's dressing-room. She is 

 reading * Clarissa,' on the other hand lies your Invi- 

 tation'' In his usual manner he proceeds, as candid 

 friends will, to criticise ; and his remarks show that 

 if his subject was the poem known as the ' Invitation 

 to Selborne,' it must have been much altered at a 

 later date. Very probably it may have been, since 

 these verses were sent later on to other friends — 

 among others, to Miss Catharine Battle some years 

 afterwards.! Whatever it was, it pleased his friend, 



* Much the same kind of journal was kept by Henry White at Fyfield 

 Rectory, amusing extracts from which have been recently printed in * Notes 

 on the Parishes of Fyfield (etc.), by the Rev. R. H. Clutterbuck, f.s.a., 

 edited by E. D. Webb, f.s.a.' Bennett Brothers, Salisbury, 1898. 



t Her copy contains thirty more lines than are given in the version first 

 printed in the 3rd edition of the * Selborne,' 1813, and is otherwise slightly 

 different. 



