CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FAMILY. 141 



are due for y 1 ' entertaining account of the Testudo aquarian 

 dulcium*. 



You do very right, I think, in looking into history, which 

 is a very gentlemanlike study. You, who have youth, health, 

 and a strong retentive memory on y r side, will soon make a 

 vast progress. 



Pray tell y r mother that I thank her for her letter. Jack 

 White's time will not be out 'til the 16 of next June, when 

 he and his mother will come southward among his relations f- 

 What mode of life that young man will take up I have not 

 yet heard — whether he will walk the hospitals in town or be- 

 come for a time a journeyman. Poor Joe Woods, son of Mr. 

 Jos. Woods, a promising young man of 21, is just dead of a 

 decline, to the great sorrow of his parents &c. With all due 

 respects, I remain 



Your affect, friend, 



GIL. WHITE. 



I propose to return home on Thursday. 



Having had no rain, not once enough to measure, at this 

 place since the last week in Feb., the degree of dustiness is 

 horrible, and not to be described ! As Bro. Th. and I walked 

 out this morning, a gale rose from the N. which filled the 

 whole atmosphere with such a cloud from road to road that 

 the prospect was quite obscured ! 



On the 27 of Feb., Tuesday, the day I left Seleburne, we 

 had such a terrible storm of wind that vast mischief was done 

 in the S. and W. of England. I expected to hear of great 

 damage, especially in Sussex ; but was thankful to find that I 

 had escaped with the overturning of my alcove into the hedge, 

 the overthrow of my stone dial, and, what grieved me most, 

 because it cannot be repaired, the ravage of my great wall 

 and tree, which, they write word, is almost torn to pieces ! 

 The gale began at 11 A.M., wind W. ; bnt the great damage 



* [There is no indication to what species he refers. — T. B.] 



t [About this time Mrs. John White, who had recently become a 



widow, came to reside with her brother-in-law, and continued with him 



until his death.— T. B.] 



