THE CENTENARY ANNIVERSARY OF GILBERT WHITE. 205 



White, who remembered him well, and who informed Prof. Bell 

 that he was only five feet three inches in stature, of a spare form 

 and remarkably upright carriage. He never would sit for his 

 portrait, and no likeness of him is extant. Many persons 

 suppose that the clergyman represented in the folding frontis- 

 piece to the first edition of his work is intended for himself; but 

 this is not the case. Of the figures there introduced, the first is 

 the Eev. Robert Yalden, Vicar of Newton Valence ; second, Mr. 

 Etty, brother of the Vicar of Selborne ; third, Mrs. Yalden ; and 

 fourth, Thomas Holt White, Gilbert's brother. 



" The expression of his countenance," says Prof. Bell, " was 

 (as those who knew him have recorded) intelligent, kindly, and 

 vivacious ; his constitution sound and vigorous ; his manners 

 courteous and affable." 



The notion of erecting some memorial in his honour, and to 

 mark the centenary anniversary of his death, is not only natural 

 at the present time, but will undoubtedly commend itself to 

 those who have derived pleasure and instruction from a perusal 

 of his work, and have paused to consider the good and lasting 

 effect which has resulted from its publication. Regarded merely 

 from an educational point of view, the book has wrought an 

 incalculable amount of good, and it is right that this should be 

 publicly recognized. 



There are some doubtless who may consider that the best 

 memorial of a man is to be found in his works, and that nothing 

 further is needed to remind us of him. But were this view to be 

 generally accepted, how little would the rising generations know 

 of the great men who have preceded them. A statue or other 

 memorial in a public place may be seen by many who have not 

 read the book, and perhaps have never heard of it. The sight of 

 the one may induce enquiry for the other, and so lead to its being 

 still more widely known. It is not a little curious that the late 

 Richard Jefferies, within a few months of his death, had a 

 marble bust erected to his memory in Winchester Cathedral, 

 while the memory of Gilbert White has been suffered to remain 

 unhonoured for a century. And yet there is no comparison 

 between the writers. Jefferies possessed the art of word- 

 painting, and could describe in minute and pleasing detail what- 

 ever natural object took his fancy for the moment; but the 

 information conveyed by his writing is of the slenderest descrip- 



