186 THROUGH GLADE AND MEAD. 
pleasure; to him its pages were a bare record of unin- 
teresting facts. . . . There is indeed something a little 
disappointing in White’s book when one takes it up for 
the first time, with his mind full of its great fame. When 
I myself first looked into it many years ago, I found 
nothing in it that attracted me, and so passed it by. 
Much more recently it fell into my hands, when I felt 
its charm and value at once. As a stimulus and spur to 
the study of natural history it has no doubt had more 
influence than any other work of the century. Its merits 
in this direction alone would perhaps account for its 
success. But, while it has other merits, and great ones, 
it has been a fortunate book; it has had little competi- 
tion; it has had the wind always with it, so to speak. 
It furnished a staple the demand for which was always 
steady and the supply small. There was no other book 
of any merit like it for nearly a hundred years. It does 
not appeal to a large class of readers, and yet no library 
is complete without it.” 
Not very far from the parish of Selborne, where 
Gilbert White lived and wrote, is the parish of Boldre, 
where William Gilpin, its vicar, was living at the same 
time and was writing his ‘‘ Remarks on Forest Scenery,” 
a work which has passed through many editions. Its 
scenes are laid in the New Forest in Hampshire, with 
every part of which Gilpin was familiar, and with the 
life in it he was in entire sympathy. I prize my own 
, 
