102 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBOENE 1759 



Again, on March 23rd, 1759, he wrote : — 



*' I am very glad that you see my soHcitude about the 

 propriety of your holding your fortune with your fellow- 

 ship in the light that I could have wished. It was owing 

 to my jealousy of your honour, not my suspicion of it, and 

 I was satisfied that you could supply me with an answer 

 to those who might ask me about it, though I could only 

 give one by guess before to the same purpose. As you are 

 satisfied of the legality of holding it, I think you are quite 

 in the right to hold it." 



When John White, a gentleman residing in the 

 country on his own means, died, it was quite natural 

 and proper that the college authorities should have 

 called upon his eldest son to justify his retention 

 of a Fellowship ; but it seems scarcely so natural or 

 proper that the following remarks respecting Gilbert 

 White should in recent years have emanated from 

 his own College : — 



"Gilbert White, of Selborne, among the fellows of Oriel 

 at this period has left the most lasting name, yet his College 

 history is in curious contrast to the reputation which is 

 popularly attached to him. Instead of being, as is often 

 supposed, the model clergyman residing in his cure, and 

 interested in all the concerns of the parish in which his 

 duty lay, he was, from a College point of view, a rich, 

 sinecure, pluralist non-resident. He held his fellowship 

 for fifty years, 1743-1793, during which period he was out 

 of residence, except for the year 1752-3, when the Proctor- 

 ship fell to the College turn, and he came up to take it. In 

 1757 he similarly asserted his right to take and hold with 

 his fellowship the small college living of Moreton Pinkney, 

 Northants, with the avowed intention of not residing. Even 



