GILBERT WHITE 13 



are from time to time carried out on the premises. 

 He is engaged in making the Ha-ha wall, "built of 

 blue rags," in the garden, which may still be seen; 

 or in erecting his sundial, the column of which, he 

 notes, is "very old, and came from Sarson House, 

 near Amport, and was hewn from the quarries of 

 Chilmarke." The building of the "great parlour" 

 engaged his attention one summer, and seems to have 

 been a great event in the monotonous life of our 

 naturalist. 



It has often been regretted that no portrait of Gilbert 

 White exists. Though urged by "brother Thomas" 

 to sit for his likeness, it does not appear that any 

 picture was ever made of him. He is said by his 

 biographer to have been only five feet three inches in 

 stature and slender in person, but at the same time to 

 have possessed a very upright carriage and a presence 

 not without dignity. It is also stated that he was kind 

 and courteous in manner, and liberal to his poorer 

 neighbours; while he is said to have been specially 

 devoted to the attention of his sick parishioners. This 

 last particular is fully borne out by the numberless 

 allusions in his letters to the sick and aged folk under 

 his care at Selborne. His own health appears to have 

 been generally good, though now and again we hear 

 of attacks of sickness, and for many years before his 

 death he was troubled with deafness, which rendered 

 conversation irksome, and which apparently caused 

 him to resort to an ear-trumpet, one being found 

 among his effects at his decease. In one of his letters 

 we find him alluding to an infirmity which we should 

 hardly have associated with the writer of the Natura- 

 list's Journal. " You, in your mild way," he writes to 

 Robert Marsham, " complain a little of procrastination ; 



