192 
the two feathers, I hinted my wislj for the whole bird; hut she 
lent a deaf ear: & in that manner, all young Women have treated 
me (when i ask favours) since i was turned of 40. 
I congratulate you upon the cheque given to the cruel french, 4 
& remain with great esteem my dear Sir, your most humble & 
obliged servant, 
It. Marsham. 
N.B. you see the mournful power the Hag has over me. Feeling 
my hand not very shaking, i begin a letter & write ’till i am 
weary ; lay it by, and wait ’till i feel myself willing to write 
again. So i have sometimes found more than a month slide away, 
before i seize my pen again. My strong comfort is that nobody 
suffers by my infirmity but myself. ’Tis like drinking ; which 
’tho’ not my weakness, i think very pardonable in those under its 
influence. Mar. 15. this day Toads sing. I cannot remember a 
Winter having passed more mildly than the last. 
In the Gent. Magazine of last Feb. is a letter 5 against the 
4 Towards the end of the preceding year Frankfurt had been retaken by 
the Germans and the French compelled to recross the Rhine. — A. N. 
5 The reason why Marsham attributed this letter to Gilbert White no doubt 
was that the writer had signed himself “ A Parish Priest,” and had stated 
that his house was “ about thirty miles from the sea-coast of Hampshire.” 
On the other hand it is evident that White as it will presently be seen 
disclaimed the authorship because the observations of the writer in 
regard to the supposed torpidity of Swallows were inconsistent with the 
views which he himself had expressed in his book. See Letters X, and 
XXXVIII, to Pennant ; and Letters IX, XII, and XVIII, to Dailies 
Barrington. 
Who then was the writer of this letter 'I Not Dr. Stephen Hales, for 
altho’ atone time he resided about the same distance as White did from the 
seacoast of Hampshire, he died in 1761, or more than thirty years before 
the letter in question was dated. 
Apropos of letters in the “ Gentleman’s Magazine” attributed to 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 the poet Collins. 
In the Memoir prefixed to the Aldine edition of that poet’s works (p.xxxi), 
tho editor has reprinted this letter entire, prefacing it witli the following 
remarks : — 
