1779 HIS DEAFNESS 39 



When the summer is established, if you find within your- 

 self an inclination to visit Hants, I shall be very glad to see 

 you at my house, and to show you our prospects, which are 

 romantic enough. Your company and conversation, provided 

 you can bear with the infirmities of a deaf man, will be very 

 agreeable to me. D"". Chandler is now sitting at my elbow, 

 and is deeply engaged in Bishop Waynflete's Kegisters, 

 two volumes folio which I obtained to be sent to my house 

 from Winton by permission from the Bishop of that diocese ; 

 last summer we had Bishop Wyckhame's registry of the 

 same bulk and number of volumes. I am, Sir, 



Your obliged servant, 



Gil. White. 



So far back as September, 1774, in Letter XXII. 

 to Harrington, the Naturalist had complained of deaf- 

 ness as partially disqualifying him from observing 

 nature. Among his effects at his decease was an 

 ear-trumpet. That however he continued to enjoy 

 good health in other respects appears from a sen- 

 tence in a letter of Mulso's, dated August 16th, 



1780 :— 



" You have owned yourself threescore with only one 

 Infirmity." 



To Miss White, Selborne, Deer. 4, 1779. 



Dear Niece, — When I wrote last I was desirous to wait 

 on you and your father as next week, but the difficulty of 

 getting my church supplyed on these dark, short Sundays ; 

 and the nearness of Xmass, against which I must be back at 

 all events, have abated my ardor ; so that now I think it 

 best to defer my visit 'til after the holidays. I am very sorry 

 indeed to hear that your father has experienced some return 



