OF 8ELB0RNE, 
559 
proof of their torpidity in Yorkshire, I long to see it. But 
as mucli writing is sometimes irksome, cannot you call in 
occasionally some young person to be your amanuensis ? 
There has been no such summer as this, so cold and so dry, 
I can roundly assert, since the year 1765. We have had 
no rain since the last week in April, and the two first days 
in May. Hence our grass is short, and our spring-corn 
languishes. Our wheat, which is not easily injured in strong 
ground by drought, looks well. The hop-planters begin to 
be solicitous about their plantations. Here I shall presume 
to correct (with all due deference) an expression of the 
great philosopher Dr. Derham. He says in his Physico- 
theology, that all cold summers are wet : whereas he 
should have said most. 
Have you seen Arthur Young^s Example of France a 
Warning to England ? it is a spirited performance. The 
season with us is unhealthy. 
With true esteem I remain. 
Your obliged servant, 
Gil. White. 
[At the head of this letter is the following note in the handwriting of 
Mr. Marsham : — " This worthy man died this month." 
His death took place on the 26th of Jmie, 1793, eleven days after the 
date of this letter.] 
Gilbert White, it is perhaps not generally known that in the volume of 
that periodical for 1781 appeared a letter under the signature "V" 
(since proved to have been penned by White), in which an interesting 
account is given of the writer's college acquaintance at Oxford with tlic 
poet Collins. 
In the Memoir prefixed to the Aldine edition of that poet's works 
(p. xxxi.), the editor has reprinted this letter entire, prefacing it with 
the following remark : — 
" It is here printed from the original manuscript, addressed ' For Mr. 
Urban. To the care of Mr. Newbery, at the corner of St. Paul's Church- 
yard, London.' The letter bears the 'Alton' postmark, and is from the 
pen of Collins's college acquaintance Gilbert White, the celebrated author 
L>f the ' Nf itural History of Selborne.' " — Ed. 
