OF SELBORNE. 547 



sights ; and that I myself, in the year 1756, set off with a 

 party at two o' the clock in the morning to see the Hessian 

 troops reviewed on a down near Winchester. While I was 

 writing the sentence above, my servant, and some neigh- 

 bours came down from the hill, and told me that they could 

 not only hear the discharges of the ordnance and small arms, 

 and see the volumes of smoke from the guns, but that 

 they could also, they thought, smell the scent of the gun- 

 powder, the wind being N.E., and blowing directly from 

 the scene of action at Wickham bushes, though they are in 

 a direct line more than twenty miles from hence. 



As I had written to you as long ago as March, I began to 

 fear that our correspondence was interrupted by indisposition 

 when your agreeable letter of July 14th came in, and 

 relieved me from my suspense. You do me much honour 

 by calling one of your beeches after my name. Linnaeus 

 himself was complimented with the Linncea borealis by one 

 of his friends, a mean, trailing, humble plant, growing in the 

 steril, mossy, shady wilds of Siberia, Sweden, an4 Eussia; 

 while I am dignified by the title of a stately Beech, the 

 most beautiful and ornamental of all forest trees. 1 The 

 reason, I should suppose, why your trees have not encreased 

 in growth and girth this summer is the want of heat to 

 expand them. I have not this year measured my firs 

 in circumference; but they have, I see, many of them, made 

 surprising leading shoots. My account of the Fern-owl, or 

 Eve-jarr, was prevented by Madam Procrastination, who, a 

 jade, lulled me in security all the spring, and told me I had 

 time enough and to spare, till at last I found that the R. S. 

 meetings were prorogued till the autumn ; 2 against which I 



1 The genus Linnc&a was characterized by Dr. Gronovius, and first 

 published as a genus in 1737 in the first edition of Linnaeus " Genera 

 Plantarum." In the same year appeared the " Flora Lapponica," in 

 which a good figure of the plant will be found, as well as in the " Flora 

 guecica," published in 1745. Only one species of the genus is known, 

 the Linncea borealis, above mentioned. ED. 



2 The meetings of the Royal Society, for whose "Transactions" the 

 account of the Fern-owl was intended. See p. 532, note 4. ED, 



