INTRODUCTION xxi 



tanti to visit Asia Minor, and procure drawings of ancient 

 monuments and inscriptions. After two years of exploration 

 Chandler returned to England, and published the materials 

 collected in a series of volumes (Ionian Antiquities, 1769 ; 

 Inscriptiones antiques, 1774; Travels in Asia Minor, 1775; 

 Travels in Greece, 1776). In 1779 he was presented by his 

 college (Magdalen) to the livings of East Worldham and 

 West Tisted, and thus became for a few years neighbour to 

 Gilbert White. In 1800 he removed 'to Tilehurst, near 

 Reading, where he died. His life of W. Waynflete, Bishop 

 of Winchester, was published posthumously in 1811. 



In 1767 White seems to have met Pennant in London, 

 and to have held conversation with him on natural history. 

 Pennant encouraged White to send him notes, and at length 

 a correspondence was begun, which was the germ of the 

 History ofSelborne. Both Pennant and Barrington favoured, 

 if they did not originate, the notion of an account of the 

 natural history of the parish. In 1774 and 1775 White 

 sent to the Royal Society his account of the swallows and 

 swifts, 1 and this formed a substantial instalment of the pro- 

 jected history. He carried out the work of collection and 

 revision in an extremely leisurely way, and the History did 

 not appear till 1789. 



White died after a short illness in 1793, and was buried in 

 Selborne churchyard, to the north of the chancel, where his 

 gravestone, inscribed " G. W., June 26, 1793," may still be 

 seen. 



In person White was small, only five feet three inches high, 

 and was described by one who knew him well 2 as of spare 

 form and remarkably upright carriage. He would never sit 

 for his portrait. Even in middle life he had to complain of 

 " the infirmities of a deaf man," but his sight was particularly 

 good up to old age. In his younger days he had been a 

 sportsman. All his life he was fond of music, though he 

 neither played nor sang. Tradition and his own writings 

 preserve a tolerable picture of his character. We cannot fail 

 to remark his old-fashioned courtesy, his good humour, his 



1 Phil. Trans., vols. Ixiv., p. 196, Ixv., p. 258. 



2 His nephew, the Rev. Francis White, in Bell's memoir. 



