GILBERT WHITE. 
313 
Oxford. The Eev. John Buckland was born in 1769, when 
White was forty-nine years old. John Buckland died, aged 
ninety-one, in 1837, when I was eleven years old. It is 
more than probable, therefore, that my great uncle knew White 
personally. As John Buckland was contemporary with White 
twenty-five years, and was nineteen years old when the first 
edition of White appeared, I can in some measure .connect 
myself with the times of White. When Professor Bell ushered 
me into White's study, my memory instantly went back to the 
old uncle's study at Warborough, where I had often played 
and eaten cakes and taken tea as a child. The old uncle was 
a simple country parson, and must have lived much in the 
same style as White did. White's study at Selborne is a plain 
room, admirably adapted for quiet writing and thought. White's 
bookcase, in which his books were formerly kept, is still in 
the study. It is a simple, wooden, close-fronted case, with 
brass wire netting. On one end is fastened the thermometer 
by means of which White took his observations. The tube is 
not inserted into a case, but simply fixed against the wall : a 
small ivory index is let into the wood-work of the bookcase. 
There is a thermometer of almost precisely similar character in 
the study of Newton A^alence parsonage. The tradition is that 
it was fixed up in its present position by Gilbert White himself. 
Professor Bell told me that White's books had been dispersed, 
and he knew not where they had gone. I can however indi- 
cate the titles of some of the books that probably inhabited 
this case. When my father, the late Dean of Westminster, died, 
Aug. 14, 1856, a great many of my old uncle's books came to 
my share. I can therefore state, pretty well for certain, that 
some of the following books were in AVhite's library at 
Selborne : — 
The Jewel House of Nature, Contaiuing Divers rare and profitable In- 
ventions, together with sundry new Experiments in the Art of Husbandry. 
Sold by Elizabeth Alsop, Grub Street, near the Upper Pump, 1653. 
Three Physico-Tlieological Discoveries, concerning — 1st, Primitive Chaos 
and Creation of the World ; 2nd, The General Deluge, its Causes and Effects ; 
3rd, The Dissolution of the World and Future Conflagration. William 
Innys, Prince's Arms, St. Paul's Church Yard, 1713. 
De Statu Mortuorum et Eesurgentium Tractatus. Autore Thoma Burnetio, 
S.T.P. Londini, 1727. 
Piscatory Eclogues, an Essay to introduce New Eules and New Characters 
into Pastoral : — 
" Eura mihi et regni placeant in vallibus amnes 
Flumina, amem silvasque inglorius." 
John Brindley, King's Arms, New Bond Street, 1729. 
Physico-Theology, or a Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. 
