1784 THE MULSOS VISIT SELBOENE 125 



request for a guide to meet them at Tisted turn- 

 pike, with a comparison of Selborne to the *' Bower 

 of Woodstock," was made. 



Mrs. Chapone, also invited, was unable to come. 



The entry occurs on — 



"July 27th, 1784. Mr. and Mrs. Mulso, and Miss Mulso, 

 and Miss Hecky Mulso came." 



The latter name is noticeable in view of what 

 followed a little later. 



On August 12th, 1784, John Mulso writes his 

 thanks for ''all the kind attentions you paid to me 

 and mine." He continues — 



" Timotheus has been prurient of poetry, and surely now 

 'his flying fingers have swept the Lyre,' he has shown a 

 great vivacity, joined with sentiment and solidity. I hope 

 he will not content himself with speaking once, like Balaam's 

 ass, but will exercise his gifts, having once spoken so well." 



The above must be read in conjunction with the 

 following reply of '' Timothy the Tortoise," which, first 

 published in Jesse's * Gleanings on Natural History ' 

 (John Murray, 1834), has always hitherto been 

 assumed to be addressed to Mrs. Chapone, nee 

 Miss Hester (Hecky) Mulso. It was, of course, 

 addressed to her niece, Mulso's second daughter 

 — then a girl in her twenty-first year — who had 

 sent to Gilbert White some verses addressed to the 

 tortoise, after this visit to Selborne. 



Mrs. Chapone had for twenty-four years ceased 

 to be Miss Mulso, a fact which has been deemed 



