SELBORNE. XIX 



^in Selborne. White rather piqued himself upon the quality of his 

 ale, and generally employed the shoemaker in the capacity of 

 taster when a fresh barrel was put on tap. But some how or other 

 the shoemaker never could come to a decision on the first glass, 

 yet never failed to decide that the second one was excellent : nor 

 do the reports say that either the one or the other moved for a 

 new trial after the second glass had been decided on. 



Of these little traits there are, however, very few ; and it would 

 seem that this delightful child of nature was so perfectly contented 

 with enjoying and dispensing rustic happiness that he cared no- 

 thing how the opinions of the fashionable world went or the gales 

 of ambition blew. 



As an observing naturalist, White stands unrivalled for the 

 minute accuracy of his facts, and the clearness with which he ren- 

 dered them ; and, if some of his conjectures were a little visionary, 

 this was more owing to the state of science at the time, and his 

 perfect deference to the opinions of others, than to any want of 

 natural acumen in the historian of Selborne. In his fortieth 

 letter to the Hon. Daines JBarrington, and in a few other places, he 

 shows the soundest critical taste, and how well he understood the 

 difference between trifling with the nomenclature of a science and 

 grasping the reality. It has sometimes been started as a sort of 

 objection that White was not systematic ; but this would have 

 been defeating his object, which was to describe his native district 

 in its true colours ; and it would not be more absurd to twist a 

 systematic geography of the whole globe into a topographical 

 sketch of a single parish than it would have been to blend a 

 system of natural history with the natural history of Selborne. 

 White, as we have hinted, did more to the actual extending of 

 natural history than almost any man of his time ; and he had the 

 rare merit of setting an example which might be followed with 

 certainty and delight in every parish in the empire, if those who 

 have ability and leisure would light their lamps at his unquench- 

 able flame. 



