NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 139 



who, with fierce lowings and menacing horns, drive the assailants quite 

 out of the pasture. 



Even great disparity of kind and size does not always prevent social 

 advances and mutual fellowship. For a very intelligent and observant 

 person has assured me that, in the former part of his life, keeping but 

 one horse, he happened also on a time to have but one solitary hen. 

 These two incongruous animals spent much of their time together in a 

 lonely orchard, where they saw no creature but each other. By degrees 

 an apparent regard began to take place between these two sequestered 

 individuals. The fowl would approach the quadruped with notes of 

 complacency, rubbing herself gently against his legs : while the horse 

 would look down with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution 

 and circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminutive com- 

 panion. Thus, by mutual good offices, each seemed to console the 

 vacant hours of the other : so that Milton, when he puts the following 

 sentiment in the mouth of Adam, seems to be somewhat mistaken : 



" Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl, 

 So well converse, nor with the ox the ape." 



I am, &c. 



LETTEE XXV. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Oct. 2nd, 1775. 



DEAR SIR. We have two gangs or hordes of gypsies which infest the 

 south and west of England, and come round in their circuit two or three 

 times in the year. One of these tribes calls itself by the noble name of 

 Stanley, of which I have nothing particular to say ; but the other is 

 distinguished by an appellative somewhat remarkable. As far as their 

 harsh gibberish can be understood, they seem to say that the name of 

 their clan is Curleople ; now the termination of this word is apparently 

 Grecian, and as Mezeray and the gravest historians all agree that these 

 vagrants did certainly migrate from Egypt and the East, two or three 

 centuries ago, and so spread by degrees over Europe, may not this 

 family-name, a little corrupted, be the very name they brought with 

 them from the Levant ? It would be matter of some curiosity, could 

 one meet with an intelligent person among them, to inquire whether, 

 in their jargon, they still retain any Greek words ; the Greek radicals 

 will appear in hand, foot, head, water, earth, &c. It is possible that 

 amidst their cant and corrupted dialect many mutilated remains of 

 their native language might still be discovered. 



With regard to those peculiar people, the gypsies, one thing is very 

 remarkable, and especially as they came from warmer climates ; and 

 that is, that while other beggars lodge in barns, stables, and cow-houses, 

 these sturdy savages seem to pride themselves in braving the severities 

 of winter, and in living sub dio the whole year round. Last September 

 was as wet a month as ever was known ; and yet during those deluges 

 did a young gypsy girl lie in the midst of one of our hop-gardens, on 

 the cold ground, with nothing over her but a piece of a blanket 



