INTRODUCTION 



BY BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE, Sc.D., F.R.S., F.S.A. 



PRESIDENT OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CORK 



Some achieve greatness, one might almost say have it 

 thrust upon them, so lightly does it descend, v^'ithout 

 apparent effort, without that strife and labour through which 

 others win towards their goal. Of such was Gilbert White, 

 of Selborne, who would certainly have been amazed had he 

 known tliat a hundred years after his time he would be the 

 patron saint of a society named after the little out-of-the- 

 way village in which he was born and where he died 

 Quiet it is to this day, out of the way, and difficult oi 

 access. How much more so in White's time, with the "in- 

 famous " roads of which he speaks and of which he gives 

 such a graphic description in his fifth letter. But for White's 

 grandfather, who left a considerable sum of money for their 

 amelioration, one must suppose that they would have been 

 even more impassable than the grandson found them in his 

 time. White had an hereditary connection with the village 

 now famous from his association with it. His grandfather, 

 just mentioned, also a Gilbert White, was a Fellow of 

 Magdalene College, Oxford, and was presented by his 

 college to the Vicarage of Selborne in 1681. There he 

 died in 1727, and his tombstone is still to be seen in the 

 church. One son survived him, John, a barrister-at-law, 

 who was the father of the famous Gilbert. The future 

 naturalist was born at the vicarage on the i8th of July, 

 1720, and was consequently seven years of age at the time 

 of his grandfather's death. He matriculated at Oriel 

 College, Oxford, in 1739, took his degree of Bachelor of Arts 

 in 1743, and was elected to a Fellowship in the following 

 year. As was then obligatory, he took orders, and was 



