1788 EEADY FOE PUBLICATION 185 



" For Cloacina with resistless sway 

 Demands her right, and authors must obey." 



In July brother Thomas and Mrs. Henry White 

 and two daughters came to stay at Selborne. 



To Mr. Churton. Selborne, Aug. 4, 1788. 



Dear Sir, — You must not expect that I who am at best 

 but a venerable vegetable, remaining like a cabbage on the 

 same spot for months together, should be able to furnish out 

 a letter full of entertaining incidents like you, who are 

 flying from diocese to diocese, and from cathedral to 

 cathedral. I thank you for your information respecting 

 Bourn Well-head, and might have made some use of it, had 

 not my last corrections, and errata been sent to London the 

 very day that I received your letter. The fate of my work 

 is now determined; and as the tree is fallen, it must lie. 

 My brother and nephew have spared no expense about it, 

 and particularly on the engravings, which have cost a con- 

 siderable sum. This book will as you suppose not be 

 published now till the autumn, when the town begins to 

 fill. In the interim the author will be in no small a squeeze ; 

 and will feel like a school boy who has done some mischief, 

 and does not know whether he is to be flogged for it or not. 

 As you were accessory to making me an author, you must 

 defend me if I am attacked unreasonably. ' Orna me,' 

 I think TuUy says somewhere. As to your own work you 

 will, I find, spare no pains about it ; so that not long hence 

 I expect to see you a very distinguished Biographer. As to 

 my beds they have all been full some time; and will be 

 more than full next week : however, by the end of the 

 month or the beginning of next there will be room for 

 you : so finish your K excursions, and then come and stay 

 a good while. The heats are so severe that the reapers give 

 out and fall sick. As to D*" Chandler and Lady, they will 



