SELBORNE. 
xvii 
ing woods on the opposite side of the Liths from the village, near 
the angle where the short and long Liths join, there is also a view 
of many of the details ; but this also is tame, and wants relief ; so 
that in fact the only general view which is striking, does not show 
too much, and shows it with a proper effect, is that from the Alton 
foot-path, which we have attempted to represent in the wood-cut, 
and which has the advantage of being a first one to a visitor 
arriving by that foot-path. 
Gilbert White 
is, however, the true interpreter of Selborne, and remains, and 
will long remain, its principal attraction ; because, though he has 
now been nearly half a century under the grassy turf, his delinea- 
tions are as fresh, as true to the state of things, and absolutely as 
new to the visitor of the place, as though the ink in which they 
were written were hardly dry. There are but few circumstances 
calculated materially to change the aspect of Selborne in the 
lapse of years, or even of generations. Belonging either to Mag- 
dalen Hall or to proprietors who are contented to till their own 
grounds and gather in their own crops, there is but little means 
of change, and no great inducement to it ; so that the place and 
White's natural history of it] stand almost upon a par as to 
durability. 
It is, perhaps, to be regretted that the biographical notices of 
White are so scanty ; and yet to every one visiting his native and 
favourite locality, and possessing a true knowledge and feeling of 
his work, the image of White presents itself before the mind at 
every spot which he has delineated with so much force and truth. 
The following brief notice, given in the last edition of his Works, 
is perhaps the only authentic biography of him upon record : — 
" Gilbert White was the eldest son of John White, of Selborne, 
Esq., and of Anne, the daughter of Thomas Holt, rector of 
Streatham in Surrey. He was born in Selborne, on July 18, 1720, 
and received his school education at Basingstoke, under the Rev. 
Thomas Warton, vicar of that place, and father of those two 
distinguished literary characters, Dr. Joseph Warton, Master of 
Winchester School, and Mr. Thomas Warton, Poetry Professor 
at Oxford. He was admitted at Oriel College, Oxford, in De- 
cember 1739, and took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in October 
1746, and was admitted one of the senior Proctors of the Uni- 
versity in April, 1752. Being of an unambitious temper, and 
strongly attached to the charms of rural scenery, he early fixed 
