viii Introduction 



certainly curate of Swarraton, at Old Alresford, for a time, 

 though he must have been again residing in Oxford in 

 1752, since he was Junior Proctor in that year. In 1755 he 

 settled in Selborne, inherited the family property in 1763, 

 and remained for the rest of his days in the village in 

 which he was born, untempted to leave it by the various 

 College livings which were offered to him. He has some- 

 times been spoken of erroneously as vicar of Selborne, 

 or as its curate, though he never occupied either position. 

 No doubt at times he officiated in his native place ; indeed, 

 the entry in the parish register which records his own 

 funeral, and is signed by *' Chas. Taylor, Vicar," is imme- 

 diately preceded by the notice of the funeral of Mary 

 Barley, aged 16, which was conducted by " Gil. White, 

 Curate," for so he signs himself, though he appears never 

 to have officially occupied that position. 



This record is dated 1793, so that White was seventy- 

 three years of age, and had passed the majority of those 

 years in Selborne. He never married, and lived in a house 

 still standing in the main street of the village, known as 

 " The Wakes." The village lies under the shelter of what 

 White calls " a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet 

 above the village." This hill is covered with a wood called 

 "The Hanger," formed, as White again tells us, in his first 

 letter, of " beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether 

 we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or 

 graceful pendulous boughs." The church, near which lie 

 the bodies of White himself and of his grandfather, nestles 

 amongst trees, the finest of which is a splendid old yew, 

 which measures twenty-five feet in circumference. In the 

 centre of the village is a spot called " The Plestor," or 

 playing-place, in the midst of which, again quoting from 

 White, " stood in old times, a vast oak, with short squat body 

 and huge horizontal arms, extending almost to the extremity 

 of the area. This venerable tree, surrounded with stone 

 steps, and seats above them, was the delight of old and 

 young, and a place of much resort on summer evenings ; 

 where the former sat in grave debate, while the lattbr 

 frolicked and danced before them. Long might it have 



