26 
NATURE NOTES 
sat in grave debate, while the latter frolicked and danced before them. Long 
might it have stood had not the amazing tempest of 1703 overturned it at once, 
to the infinite regret of the inhabitants and the vicar, who bestowed several 
pounds in setting it in its place again, but all his care could not avail ; the tree 
sprouted for a time, then withered and died. 
One can readily conceive the “ infinite regret ” of the inhabitants at its 
destruction. Their fathers had many a time and oft, sported round its bulging 
root, as did their children yesternight ; and for their children’s children did they 
still expect it would have spread its hospitable shade. It was a brave old oak — 
a link connecting time past with lime to come — generation with generation. It 
was to them an old familiar friend— associated with the sports of their youth ; for 
they gambolled beneath its spreading boughs — with the loves of their manhood 
— with the garrulities of age — nay, with their very griefs ; for the ashes of their 
fathers rest awhile beneath its shade ere they finally repose in peace beneath the 
undistinguished turf. 
Sanctified Spots. 
Of the hermitage wherein Gilbert White often studied and contemplated 
nothing remains but tbe site. There is, it appears to me, a degree of criminality 
in the neglect that suffers anything that has been sanctified by genius to be lost 
or forgotten. It is not merely an injustice to the memory of the man who makes 
classic the very ground whereon he treads, but it is a .sad privation to those who 
hold in veneration the place he inhabited, and the haunts of his footsteps ; where 
one lingers fondly and long, as if to catch from the inspiration of the place 
something of the inspiration of the man who gave to the place much of its interest, 
much of its beauty, and when we consider how greatly natural beauty is assisted 
by association ; when we reflect that the pleasure we derive from the contempla- 
tion of magnificent scenery is as nothing where nothing of genius is associated ; 
and that no place is tame, no place barren, no place unlovely, that genius has 
consecrated to fame, we cannot help feeling an indignant sorrow that the spot 
which genius loved to inhabit should be suffered to be forgotten, or the print of 
his footsteps to be effaced from the earth. The bleak and naked waste, enriched 
by classical associations, has more attraction for us than the exuberant prairie of 
the desert — the stream by whose banks the poet sat and sang, flows to a music 
sweeter than its own, and the valleys and hills, peopled with the embodied 
“ creations of fancy,” live in remembrance and look green in song. These 
associations make the best riches, the true glory of a nation — robe Nature in a 
perpetual spring ; they give to barrenness fertility and beauty ; they endear to us 
our country, and by fostering the growth of national pride — that vanity which is 
akin to virtue — nerve the soul to deeds of noble daring, and stimulate us to study 
to be thought worthy of the classic soil we boast to call our own. Therefore, I 
say again, let no haunt of genius be desecrated by neglect or injury ; let every 
memorial of its whereabout be studiously and lovingly preserved and cherished, 
till time and memory shall be no more. 
Selhorne seen from afar. 
The prospect of the village from the Hanger is surpassingly beautiful. It is 
a picture, and that picture the picture of peace. The cottages, surrounded each 
by its shrubby enclosure — some built of yellow stone — .some of red brick — others 
of lath and plaster — but all of picturesque and fanciful forms ; the intervening 
trees shading and softening down the tone of the landscape ; the unpretending, 
though tasteful tower of the venerable church ; the shadowy contemporary yew, 
that for so many centuries have borne the old church tower company ; the 
surrounding habitations of the silent dead ; the modest vicarage, with its magnifi- 
cent hedge, or rather wall, of yew ; the moss-grown and, alas I neglected garden 
of Gilbert White, where delighted to disport Timothy the tortoise, and where, 
at this moment, you may see the blackbirds hopping familiarly about the walks ; 
the vale winding on towards Oakhanger, parted in the centre by a strip of 
brighter green, where runs concealed the labbling little brook, the pale peat- 
reek, or rather vapour, ascending from the cottage chimneys, hardly dimming 
where it ri.ses, the lucid transparency of the air. . . . Our stroll was 
delightful, and we returned by moonlight, serenaded by the nightingale, to our 
inn, when we retired to rest after a day of unmixed pleasure ; in which, despite 
