Vlll SELBORNE. 



at variance with the fact, and from actual observation we say 

 with confidence that the best way of securing for any rural 

 place the maximum of rural intelligence and rural enjoyment 

 would be to turn it to a Selborne. 



The influence of locality upon character, though often over- 

 looked, is much greater than those who have not made it the 

 subject of direct and continued observation would be led to sup- 

 pose. We can easily perceive the external differences of appear- 

 ance which are produced by great differences of latitude and 

 climate ; and we can also observe how the expressions of features 

 and the tones of voices vary in different countries or different 

 districts of the same country. Those finer shades, however, in 

 which the moral and intellectual characters of men are influenced 

 by their localities, are not so open to common observation, 

 though in themselves of more importance than the others. Those 

 who are born and bred in towns are less affected by natural 

 causes than those who are born and bred in the country, because 

 their characters are altogether of a more artificial cast, and thus 

 justify the remark of the amiable and philosophic Cowper : 



" God made the country, and man made the town." 



In forming an estimate of the influence of locality, or of any other 

 natural circumstance, we have therefore to attend chiefly to the 

 difference between one rural district and another ; aud here it 

 will invariably be found that the finer the air, the more beautiful 

 the scenery, and the more nearly the whole population approxi- 

 mate to an equality with each other, the average character both 

 intellectual and moral is always the higher. 



Selborne enjoys all these advantages. Its air is exceedingly 

 pure and healthy, its scenery beautiful and diversified, and there 

 is no great man resident within the parish, beneath whose 

 shadow the people grow up feeble and etiolated, as herbs do 

 under the shade of a great tree. There is no doubt that those 

 were the circumstances which so strongly prompted Gilbert 

 White to the observation and study of nature, and which made 

 him prefer following nature herself, in his lovely retreat at Sel- 

 borne, to the ambitious wars and wranglings of College Sophs 

 and Society's Councils. Learning, leisure, and the absence of 

 worldly ambition, of course enabled White to carry his pursuits 

 to that perfection which has so deservedly won him a name ; 

 but still he was indebted to Seiborne for the germ and the im- 



