PREFACE. XIX 



present volume for the press : that completed, it 

 was his intention to have revised, corrected, and 

 arranged his materials for the supplementary work 

 above alluded to. But again drawn within the vor- 

 tex of conflicting passions, and compelled by his 

 official station to take an active part in proceedings 

 repugnant to his peaceful disposition, his spirits 

 flagged, and the completion of his purpose was 

 delayed until the period to which he anxiously 

 looked forward, when he could honourably and 

 without self-reproach set himself free from the 

 trammels in which he felt himself bound. Before 

 that period arrived he sank under an illness, of 

 short duration in itself, but of which the founda- 

 tions had doubtless been long previously laid. His 

 collections relating to u Selborne and its Vicinity" 

 are now in my hands, and I trust, when other 

 claims (claims of duty) have been fulfilled, that 

 those of feeling may follow as they ought in next 

 succession, and that I may be enabled to give 

 those collections to the world in a form in some 

 degree resembling that which he intended them to 

 assume. 



In the present edition of the works of Gilbert 

 White my brother's first object was to insure the 

 purity of the text by a careful comparison through- 

 out with the original editions. From these no 

 deviation has been admitted, with the exception 

 of some half dozen sentences which the scrupulous 

 delicacy of a gentleman who has added much to 

 the interest of the work had, in the last edition, 

 converted into Greek, in which language, in defe- 

 rence to his particular request, they have been 



