1759 ALTERATIONS AT SELBORNE 109 



found enclosed in yours. Neither am I painter enough 

 to give you so just an idea of them, as you I believe have 

 conveyed to me of your Hermitage, by the handsome per- 

 formance of Miss Culverton. But indeed you have shown 

 a right picturesque imagination in the choice of the motto,* 

 in which without the scratch under the last words I could 

 have found, not only your poetical Fancy, but your filial 

 Piety." 



And on March 23rd, 1759 — 



"Every fine day makes us think of your alterations and 

 the beauties of Selborne. Mrs. Mulso longs to see the 

 Hermitage, the opus operatum of Harry." 



The Garden Kalendar records : — 



"March 31^* Finished a bastion, and Ha ha fenced with 

 sharpened piles, in the vista from Baker's Hill to the 

 great mead: and a conical mount t about six-feet diameter 

 at top, and five high, at the bottom of the great mead. 

 Mount about eight days' work. Ha ha about sixteen." 



In April Gilbert White paid his usual Easter 

 visit to Oxford, the second since the year (1759) 

 began, having gone thither for about ten days 

 at the beginning of January, no doubt to see the 

 Provost upon the business now settled. 



♦ Inscribed over the door of the Hermitage were the lines from Milton's 

 * II Penseroso ' : — 



" May at last my weary age 

 Find out the peaceful Hermitage, 

 The hairy gown and mossy cell. 

 Where I may sit and rightly spell 

 Of every star that heaven doth shew, 

 And every herb that sips the dew ; 

 Till old experience do attain 

 To something like prophetic strain." 



t Later this mount received the addition of a '* Winepipe " set upon it. 



