23 [Vol. xxxiii. 



stance was discovered in this country by Curtis (Trans, Linn. 

 Soc. vi. pp. 75-91), and was not made known until nearly a 

 twelvemonth after its discoverer's death ; while we have 

 editor after editor, many of them well-informed or otherwise 

 competent judges, citing fresh proofs of White's industry 

 and accuracy. That he was a prince among observers, nearly 

 always observing the right thing in the right way, is a very 

 great merit ; but not a few others have been as industrious 

 and as accurate without attaining the rank assigned to him. 

 Good-natured reviewers are apt to say of almost any new 

 book on observational natural history that the author 

 has studied in White's school, and to prophesy the success 

 of a work which they declare has been written on the model 

 of ' Selborne.' Such an author has frequently the gift of 

 writing agreeably, and has occasionally been a fair naturalist, 

 though too often there is a tendency to observe the wrong 

 thing or in the wrong way ; but the best of these men does 

 not come near White. He had a genius for observing, and 

 for placing before us in a few words the living being he 

 observed. In addition to his excellence in this respect, it is 

 also evident that he was not only all that was meant by the 

 old phrase ' a scholar and a gentlemen/ but was a philosopher 

 of no mean depth. It seems, however, as though the com- 

 bination of all these qualities would not necessarily give 

 him the unquestioned superiority over all other writers in the 

 same field. The secret of the charm of his writings must be 

 sought elsewhere; but it has been sought in vain. Some 

 have ascribed it to his way of identifying himself in feeling 

 with the animal kingdom, though to this sympathy there 

 were notable exceptions. Some, like Lowell, set down the 

 ' natural magic ' of White to the fact that, ' open the book 

 where you will, it takes you out of doors ' ; but the same is 

 to be said of other writers who yet remain comparatively 

 undistinguished. It may be certainly averred that his style, 

 a certain stiffness characteristic of the period being admitted, 

 is eminently unaffected, even when he is ' didactic/ as he 

 more than once apologises for becoming, and the same 

 simplicity is as observable in his letters to members of his 



