1778 



MARY WHITE 23 



is set, and I do not desire to put you out of conceit with 

 your Vignette, which is really pretty. But I grow very 

 impatient for the Work, I have promised it as a regale to 

 the good old bishop. I depend upon the religious turn that 

 is in it to compleat his approbation to that part which as a 

 naturalist he may know less of, and of course care less about." 



On February 12th, 1778, the same correspondent 



writes : — 



"You are so taken up as a builder, that you do not yet 

 speak in your old style of a gardener. . . . The Hermitage 

 is hanging over my chimney now, and I do all I can to 

 persuade myself that it is like: but your little motto at 

 the bottom does more towards bringing it to my mind 

 than all Grimm's graving. Success to your Lares V 



The motto referred to is, of course, the line from 

 the ' Invitation to Selborne ' — 



" Where the Hermit hangs his straw-clad cell." 



A new correspondent, to whom gossiping letters 

 were addressed, now appears in Mary (Molly), the 

 only daughter of Thomas White, who, at this time 

 a girl aged nineteen, kept house for her father, a 

 widower, at South Lambeth. 



The following letter was written after a visit to 

 his brother at South Lambeth, whither he carried 

 his Naturalist's Journal, in which he continued to 

 note his observations, some of which read rather 

 oddly at the present day. 



" March 14. The green woodpecker laughs in the fields of 

 Vauxhall. 



" Owls hoot at Vauxhall." 



