AA^ APPRECIATION OF GILBERT WHITE 45 
can, at least partially, satisfy their curiosity. There is in my 
possession a list of “ Portraits at Selhorne,” in the handwriting 
of Glyd White, who was the only (surviving) child of Gilbert 
White’s niece Mary — the “ Molly ” of the letters from her uncle 
to her, printed in my “ Life” of the naturalist. This list was 
apparently not made at Selborne by Glyd White himself, since 
after one entry — that of a portrait of James White — he has 
written in pencil “ Who can this mean ” ; and it is not quite 
complete, 1 am sure. Obviously portraits of females in the list 
may be disregarded. There remain the following pictures: (i) 
“ Mr. Hyde (father of Benjamin) ” ; (2) “ Benjamin Hyde ” ; (3) 
“James White (grandson of Sir Samson') (4) “ Rev. Mr. 
Whitby (grandfather of Oliver) ” ; (5) “ Rev. Mr. Whitby (father 
of Oliver) ” ; (6) “ Oliver Whitl)y.”’* To the above list must 
be added two portraits of gentlemen which were certainly “ at 
Selborne”; (7) the Rev. Gilbert White (grandfather of the 
naturalist) ; and (8) the Rev. Thomas Holt (father of the 
naturalist’s mother). 
When Mary White died in 1839, her niece Georgiana, who 
had for some years resided with her aunt, stayed on at The 
Wakes for a little time ; but she soon left Selborne, and there 
was a sale of furniture, &c., from The Wakes, at Alton. I have 
seen the catalogue of this sale and no family pictures occur 
in it, nor was this at all likely to have been the case. But in 
the case of another member of the family, John White, the 
publisher, who built the thatched cottage in the grounds of The 
Wakes, where he resided for some years, from 1809, there 
certainly was a sale of his effects when he left Selborne, some 
time before 1830, in poor circumstances, in consequence of some 
“ agricultural speculations,” which “ had ended ruinously,” 
according to the writer of an article in a periodical of 1830, 
describing a visit to Selborne. 
This sale of John White’s effects almost certainly accounts 
for the fact that the late Mr. Bell was able to purchase certain 
of the above-mentioned portraits from persons in the neighbour- 
hood of Selborne, after he bought the house and settled there 
in 1842. These pictures, which were all repurchased by 
members of my family at Mr. Bell’s sale in, or about, 1880, 
were the portraits of Benjamin Hyde the younger, the three 
Whitby portraits, that of Gilbert White, Vicar of Selborne, and 
of James White. Now it is clear that none of these portraits 
can have been the “ likeness of Mr. White,” since this picture 
is expressly stated by the “ housekeeper ” (probably an old 
* This is probably James White, son of Benjamin, the publisher, who died 
an Officer in the Army of fever in the West Indies, and to whom there is a 
monument in the Chancel of Selborne Church. 
^ These Whitby portraits came into tbe family through the second marriage 
of Gilbert White’s greatgrandmother, Mrs. Benjamin Hyde, junr., to Mr. Whitby, 
by whom she became the father of Oliver Whitby, who founded the Whitby 
School at Chichester. 
