PREFACE 



TO THE PRESENT EDITION. 



To the "few Biographical Records "'of GILBERT 

 WHITE prefixed by his nephew John to the edition 

 of 1802, and here reprinted, it is quite unnecessary 

 to add. They contain the simple annals of a good 

 man, contented with his station, and unambitious 

 of worldly honour or advantage. His refusal of 

 church preferment, which was so often within his 

 reach, arose from no distaste for the discharge of 

 his clerical functions, for during the last few years 

 of his life he officiated as curate of Selborne, and 

 he had previously done duty in the same capacity 

 in the adjoining parish of Faringdon. The*last 

 entry in the register of burials which precedes his 

 own, and precedes it only by the brief space of 

 three weeks, is attested by his signature; and a 

 baptism registered by him bears date within a fort- 

 night of his dissolution proofs that the illness 

 under which he sank was of short duration, and 

 that he continued to the last zealous in the per- 

 formance of his sacred duties. The inscription on 

 his monument, which has been removed by the 

 pious care of his surviving relatives from the exte- 

 rior to the interior of the chancel, is given at p. 527 

 of the present edition; and "a slight heave of the 

 turf, ' the fifth from the wall/ with the initials and 

 date, <G. W. ob. 1793/ on the low footstone, 



b 



