SELBORNE 
207 
and weather vane, had a peculiar fascination. I wondered, as I 
stood inside and looked up the aisle at the pulpit, what sort of 
sermons the naturalist preached. They were, doubtless, full of 
allusions to nature : his similes were, no doubt, drawn from his 
store of natural history, and all would “ lead through nature up 
to nature’s God.”* In the centre of the chancel is a slab, and on 
either side, on the walls, are tablets erected to the memory of 
relatives of the quiet Gilbert, relatives who fell in foreign lands 
fighting for their country. Of Gilbert White himself no marble 
monument speaks out.t His grave is to be found in the church- 
yard, behind the church. It is marked, like many of the others 
around, by a head and foot stone with the simple inscription : 
“ G. W., 26 June, 1793.” Just such a resting-place as the good 
old naturalist would have desired ! In what more suitable spot 
could they have placed him ? There he lies buried among the 
scenes he loved, and Selborne, without that quiet and simple 
grave, would not be the Selborne of Gilbert White. I had a 
look at “ The Wakes,” but the house is much altered, and was 
not the pretentious building it now is when its immortal owner 
occupied it. The rooms occupied by the old bachelor are still 
\ ery much what they were, and his sun-dial stands out on the 
lawn behind. To another classic spot the visitor must go. The 
hill, with its Hanger, is a conspicuous object in the famous 
letters. It is a chalk hill three hundred feet high covered with 
beech, the most lovely of all forest trees. The trees were almost 
bare, and the hill, as viewed from the street, looked black and 
weird-looking in the dark shadow thrown out by the departing 
sun behind. I climbed the Zig-zag, cut, it is said, by our old 
friend himself and his brothers. It is a winding path to the 
summit ; and it is easy to imagine the old naturalist digging out 
a path in the slippery chalk that he might climb more easily to 
his favourite spot. Perhaps it was cut when he began to feel 
that the fatigue of climbing the hill was too much for him, or 
perhaps it was that others might enjoy the same pleasures he 
had so often enjoyed on its summit. There he sat and learned 
the habits of the woodlark, or the blackbird, or some other of his 
feathered friends ; or gathered specimens of yellow Monotropa or 
helleborine and the other plants found on its slopes. There 
were other pilgrims besides myself on the hill enjoying the 
prospect. I had a look down the glade which White cut in the 
trees behind “ The Wakes.” Probably it was from that spot 
that he obtained the “very engaging view, being an assemblage 
of hill, dale, woodlands, heath and water.” 
There was no one about on the “ straggling street ” when I 
returned save a boy driving a couple of cows home, which he 
allowed to walk as leisurely as they might, careful, I thought, 
not to disturb the serenity of the place. R. .A.. 
* Those sermons of White’s which are extant do not bear out this notion, 
being simple eighteenth century moral essays. — E d. N.N. 
t This is an oversight, as there is a marble slab to White’s memory in the 
chancel. — E d. N.N. 
