112 NATURAL HISTORY. 



sense of the term, Gilbert White's life possesses none that 

 the most painstaking of biographers has ever been able 

 to discover. He never married, though he was at one 

 time in love. He was of cheerful and sociable disposi- 

 tion, and was beloved by one and all who knew him. 

 He does not appear to have had a large circle of acquaint- 

 ances; but he maintained a correspondence with several 

 of the leading naturalists of the day, and especially with 

 Pennant. 



The work which has rendered Gilbert White immortal is 

 ' The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, in the 

 County of Southampton,' the first edition of which was 

 published in London in 1789, in quarto. There have 

 been many subsequent editions, mostly of octavo size. 

 It is not possible to give any notion of this charming 

 book, by abstracting it, by enumerating its contents, or 

 by quotations. Gilbert White was essentially, to use the 

 words of his biographer (Mr Edward Jesse), ' an out- 

 door naturalist, following the pursuit with unwearied dili- 

 gence, and enjoying the charms of rural scenery with 

 unbounded admiration.' In his love of nature he 

 resembled Pennant; but the latter was a man of super- 

 abundant vitality, wholly unsentimental, self-reliant, self- 

 assertive, and not without a spice of personal vanity ; 

 whereas Gilbert White was a serene contemplative soul, 

 devoid of ambition, with the tender, sensitive spirit that a 

 poet and he wrote poetry occasionally ought to have. 

 His love of nature was, however, the love of a man of 

 science. In other words, it was a love which was not 

 diminished by close acquaintance with its object, but 

 which, on the contrary, depended on and grew out of the 



