1786 VICAK OF SELBOENE MAERIES 153 



that all may be made very happy. The prize was not 

 bought in equal shares ; so that many servants and labourers 

 divided only £35 per man. I wish such a prize, so divided, 

 would befall my neighbours at Selborne.* 



On Tuesday Mrs. Etty and her maidens leave us : and on 

 Thursday, by permission, Mr. Taylor, our vicar, is to come to 

 the parsonage house for eight or ten days, and to bring his 

 hride with him, and to keep his wedding here. They are to 

 bring, I hear, a man and maid servant with them, but no 

 lady bridesmaid ; and are, I conclude, to be in a very private 

 way: however it is not unlikely that we shall visit them. 

 The bride is — "ah! pray. Uncle, tell me who the bride 

 is." Why, the bride is to be Miss Lisle of Moylscourt near 

 Ringwood, a lady of one of the best families in the county ; 

 and whose uncle represented this county in parliament 

 for many years; and whose grandfather wrote the book 

 on husbandry. I am in a sad fright, having no silk-breeches, 

 and stockings to make a wedding-visit in. In just such 

 a fright was Uncle Richard,! when first your mother came 

 unexpectedly to Newton. John Carpenter has opened a 

 shop with a great bow-window to the Plestor, in which 

 he sells ironmongry, hardware, cheese and breeches. Tell 

 your father that the vast Ash-tree on the Plestor is all 

 worked into bushels, half-bushels, pecks, gallons, and seed- 

 laps; and that it was curious to see such a huge, stubborn 

 mass by art bent and moulded into so many pliable and 

 shapely implements and utensils. Tell him also that 

 nephew Edmund is very earnest to procure some rock-work 

 for the bottom of his shrubbery; and that he, nephew 

 John, and Ventris are to go all to Bridestone-lane in order 

 to select out some large rocks for that purpose. 



* On one occasion the purchase of a lottery ticket occurs in Gilbert White's 

 account-books. He had a distinguished example, since John Mulso mentions 

 that his uncle, Bishop Thomas, had shared a ticket with Ms pupil, Prince 

 Edward. 



t Richard, brother of William Yalden, Mrs. Thomas White's first husband. 



