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worthy — Robert Maksham — to appear in the present publication, 
so as to complete, so far as it is known to exist, the correspondence 
of those two eminent men and thorough lovers of Nature. 
Of Gilbert White it is needless here to speak, but attention 
may be called to the fact that the last of the letters now printed 
must have been nearly, if not quite, the last of those delightful 
essays on Natural History which he ever penned. It closes with 
the ominous words : — “ The season with us is unhealthy." They 
were written on the 15th of June, 1793, and the writer died 
eleven days afterwards. 
Though far less celebrated than his contemporary and correspon- 
dent, Robert Marsham is already known to most readers of 
White’s posthumously published writings as one to whose opinions 
the latter often referred in terms of respect. Born the 27th 
of January, 1703, Marsham began to shew early in life a fondness 
for arboriculture, as his descendant finds in one of his earliest 
journals: — “March, 1718.9. The Inclosure n.e. of the House 
“ [at Stratton] was sewd by John Gunner (my Father’s plowman) 
“with oats and acorns (part of my gathering). In winter, 1734 
“ I measured one of the tallest oaks from these acorns and found it 
“24 feet 5 inches high. Same time I measured some of the last 
“year’s shoots and found some 3 ft. & ^ & some (that I believe were 
“only the year’s growth) were above 4 feet.” 
On the 8th of February, 1728, he entered as Fellow-commoner 
of Clare Hall in the University of Cambridge, as shewn by the 
admission Book of that College, which its present Master, the Rev. 
E. Atkinson, D.D., has kindly examined for that purpose.* It does 
not appear that he ever proceeded to a degree, but the numerous 
classical quotations in his writings prove him to have been a very 
good scholar. He subsequently went abroad (in 1737 and 1738) 
and travelled through France, Switzerland and Italy, amassing 
* Dr. Atkinson has also been so good as to point out that the Master of 
Clare at the time of Marsham’s entrance to the University was Charles 
Morgan, a natural philosopher and an intimate friend of Martin Folkes 
(himself a Clare man), the President of the Royal Society. These circum- 
stances may have encouraged Marsham’s diligent pursuit of observational 
science, though that he was a naturalist almost from his cradle is evident on 
other grounds. 
