1781 DRAWING OF THE TEMPLE 75 



little an idea of the high point of your Hermitage* In the 

 place he is just, but gives no representation of the position 

 with regard to the lower grounds. In the Temple, by 

 shewing the turn of the Hangers, and by multiplying the 

 grounds before you, he describes the advanced ground that 

 you are upon. Colouring would express it compleatly, but 

 the engraving is of too uniform a shade to do it justice. 



" I was exceedingly obliged, my dear old friend, by your 

 visit to me; especially considering that I have seemingly 

 been negligent with regard to visiting Selborne." 



During the visit referred to in the next letter the 

 Naturalist's Journal records the opening by " brother 

 Thomas " of two tumuli on Selborne Down ; " nothing 

 found." 



To Miss White. Selborne, Nov. 13, 1781. 



Dear Molly, — Your visit, which you call a long one, I call 

 a very moderate one, and wish you could have been prevailed 

 on to have stayed longer: however I thank you and your 

 father for coming to see us. Mrs. Yalden lately took a 

 handful of sticks, and stuck them along the common down 

 to the Bostal, and from the mossy-dells to the zig-zag ; she 

 afterwards took a cartful of chalk and a carter, and ordered 

 him to lay lumps of chalk all the way, for direction posts, 

 the whole length of the down, so that Mr. Etty who used to 

 say he would not go over the common by himself in the dark 

 for £50, might now venture for half the money. 



Molly Berrimanf continues to be the most unfortunate of 

 women, for now she has lost all her clothes. When the 



* This sentence locates the site of the Hermitage, i.e. the original 

 Hermitage, well known to Mulso. The curious visitor to Selborne will 

 readily distinguish the "area" (as Gilbert White called it) on which it 

 stood, cut out of the chalk hill high up, a little to the west of the Zigzag. 



t The wife of a Selborne farmer. 



