OF SELBORNE, 
221 
standing. Had his capacity been better, and directed to 
the same object, he had perhaps abated much of our wonder 
at the feats of a more modern exhibitor of bees ; and we 
may justly say of him now, 
- _ u TjjQ^^^ 
Had thy presiding star propitious shone, 
Shouldst Wildman be." 
When a tall youth, he was removed from hence to a 
distant village, where he died, as I understand, before he 
arrived at manhood. 
LETTER XXVIIL 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
Selborne, Jan. 8, 1776. 
T is the hardest thing in the world to shake 
off superstitious prejudices: they are sucked 
in, as it were, with our mother's milk, and, 
growing up with us at a time when they 
take the fastest hold, and make the most 
lasting impressions, become so interwoven into our very 
constitutions, that the strongest good sense is required to 
disengage ourselves from them. ]No wonder, therefore, 
that the lower people retain them their whole lives through, 
since their minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, 
and therefore not enabled to make any efforts adequate to 
the occasion. 
Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we enter 
on the superstitions of this district, lest we should be sus- 
pected of exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for 
this enlightened age. 
But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would do well 
to remember that no longer ago than the year 1751, and 
within twenty miles of the capital, they seized on two super- 
annuated wretches, crazed with age, and overwhelmed with 
