1756 STORIES IN COMMON-ROOM 89 



uncommon ; a circumstance which is scarcely con- 

 sistent with a statement which has been made in 

 recent years, but without any sort of evidence to 

 support it, that Gilbert White's relations with the 

 members of his college were not entirely cordial. 

 Mr. Jesse states,^ " on the authority of one of his 

 nephews," in a short biography of Gilbert White : — 



"As long as his health allowed him he always attended 

 the annual election of Fellows t of Oriel College, where the 

 gentlemen Commoners were allowed the use of the Common- 

 room after dinner. This liberty they seldom availed them- 

 selves of, except on the occasion of Mr. White's visits; for 

 such was his happy, and, indeed inimitable manner of 

 relating an anecdote, and telling a story, that the room 

 always filled when he was there." 



Perhaps the following extract from a letter written 

 in 1783 by Gilbert White's niece, Mary, to her 

 brother, Thomas Holt- White, at Oriel, may refer to 

 one of these stories : — 



" I want to know when you got into your rooms and how 

 you liked them, and Oxford in general, but that I suppose 

 you will say at present you can be no judge of. My Uncle 

 White says he remembers calling on two brothers who 

 inhabited the same rooms, and desiring to borrow a pen and 

 ink, and his being rather surprised with the answer that 

 they really never had possessed any since they came to 

 College, tho' they had been there two or three years. I 

 hope this fashion is not general, indeed he mentions it as 

 rather a particular thing." 



* Bohn's edition, 1854, p. xi. 



+ For this we should read "The annual audit of accounts.' 



