OF SELBOENE. 221 



standing. Had his capacity been better, and directed to 

 the same object, he had perhaps abated much of our wonder 

 at the feats of a more modern exhibitor of bees ; and we 

 may justly say of him now, 



" Thou, 



Had thy presiding star propitious shone, 



Shouldst Wildman be." 



When a tall youth, he was removed from hence to a 

 distant village, where he died, as I understand, before he 

 arrived at manhood. 



LETTER XXVIII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON". 



SELBORNE, Jan. 8, 1776. 



T is the hardest thing in the world to shake 

 off superstitious prejudices : they are sucked 

 in, as it were, with our mother's milk, and, 

 growing up with us at a time when they 

 take the fastest hold, and make the most 

 lasting impressions, become so interwoven into our very 

 constitutions, that the strongest good sense is required to 

 disengage ourselves from them. No wonder, therefore, 

 that the lower people retain them their whole lives through, 

 since their minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, 

 and therefore not enabled to make any efforts adequate to 

 the occasion. 



Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we enter 

 on the superstitions of this district, lest we should be sus- 

 pected of exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for 

 this enlightened age. 



But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would do well 

 to remember that no longer ago than the year 1751, and 

 within twenty miles of the capital, they seized on two super- 

 annuated wretches, crazed with age, and overwhelmed with 



