256 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE 1774 



Mr. Lever desires to see my papers, let him have them; 

 he is a man of honor and will not suffer them to be 

 transcribed. I beg his objections and additions. After I 

 have heard from you again I will send the fourth mono- 

 graphy with Mr. Willis's receipt, &c. 



Linnaeus still allows your Fiscis thoracicus to be a new 

 genus; he should give it a name, and you an engraving. 

 When he talks of making honourable mention of you in 

 his future edition you may reply "orna me" 



No doubt the ' Voyage to the Hebrides ' * is an enter- 

 taining work ; I have seen the cuts, but not the book. You 

 should observe when your summer birds come and depart, 

 that we may compare notes. 



It is a sickly time among young folks, especially in 

 Sussex. Thomas has had a pleurisy, and is not recovered 

 yet so as to do any hard work. Molly White likes Selborne 

 and looks well. Nanny Woods is very stout and very 

 brown; she is all day in the sun. Wall fruit abounds, 

 and vines promise to blow well. Harry has just lost his 

 best cart-horse; he is most unfortunate in horse flesh. 



As my little mouse is so common in your parts and 

 probably in all the intermediate, I am amazed that it 

 should so long remain a nondescript. 



Printers, I know, some of them get a deal of money ; but 

 their state of apprenticeship must be, I should suppose very 

 low and servile and unwholesome; but of all this I am 

 not sure. Chemistry, Brother Thomas says, is very un- 

 wholesome. A packer's was, I have heard, a fine business, 

 but at present they say merchants are their own packers. 

 I have heard no more of the Eibbon man. Jack will by 

 no means obstruct my motions this summer, but is of use 

 and service. We never fall out much and then it is chiefly 

 about quantity in verse, and there is no moral turpitude 



* Pennant's * Voyage to the Hebrides ' was first published in this year 

 (1774). 



