PREFACE. XI 



author occasionally refers, but without naming 

 him) was a wholesale ironmonger in London ; but 

 quitting business with an ample fortune devoted 

 much of his time to literary pursuits, especially on 

 subjects connected with meteorology and natural 

 history. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, 

 and author of numerous essays which appeared 

 in the " Gentleman's Magazine" between the years 

 1780 and 1790, under the signature of T. H. W. 

 Among these a series of articles on the trees of 

 Great Britain are particularly deserving of notice, 

 for the extensive information, good taste, and 

 variety of reading which they display. His mantle 

 has descended upon his son, Thomas Holt White, 

 Esq. of Enfield in Middlesex : in the " Notes on 

 Shakspeare" in which the father sometimes in- 

 dulged, we find the same spirit which induced the 

 son to inscribe his name on the list of commen- 

 tators in the variorum Shakspeare of Isaac Reid ; 

 and in his " Vindication of Milton from the censure 

 of Dr. Johnson" is contained the germ of the vigo- 

 rous and masterly " Review of Johnson's criticisms 

 on the style of Milton's English Prose," and of an 

 edition, truly classical, of the most perfect speci- 

 men of that prose, the u Areopagitica," in all the 

 purity of its original text, and clothed with all the 

 panoply of critical illustration, copious, erudite, 

 and profound. 



A third brother, Benjamin, the publisher of the 

 first edition of the present work, was during much 

 of the latter half of the past century the principal 

 publisher of English books on Natural History. 

 On the death of Gilbert he succeeded to the estate 



