GILBERT WHITE. 
55 
1 saw, where on a leafless tree 
The happy bird did perch and sing, 
The old song, sung eternally. 
Went rippling o’er the woodland hill. 
Oh ! light of heart and bright of wing 
The happy bird did trill and sing. 
Helen J. Ormerod. 
GILBERT WHITE.- 
This pretty book will be welcomed by every lover of White’s Selbonie. Its 
main purpose is to give an accurate statement of the various editions of the book, 
which is set forth in three chapters of nearly a hundred pages, and a tabular 
summary, with notices of the reception of the book from its first issue in 1789, to 
1S95 ■ purpose has been amply fulfilled. Another excellent service done by 
Mr. Martin is the revision of the geology of .Selborne, with the latest scientific 
accounts of the strata, e.g.. of the gault running north and south of Horsham, the 
nearest approach of the Hastings sands and of Haslemere, the nearest touch 
from .Selborne of the Wealden clay. 
One chapter deals with Gilbert White as a poet. No doubt he loved poetry 
as he loved music. He says, November 24, 1782 : — *• When I hear fine music I 
am haunted with passages therefrom night and day, and especially at first waking, 
which, by their importunity, give me more uneasiness than pleasure.” He quotes, 
among many other poets, Cowper, and in 1788 Phillip’s lines on foliage, “Emerald 
green encased in fltiming gold,” and the beautiful lines of his friend. Dr. James 
Hurdis — of Magdalene College, Oxford, Professor of Poetry, Rector of Bishop- 
stone, Sussex — on the bells, which White applies to his childhood’s bells of Alton. 
Hurdis was a .Sussex man, whose school was at Chichester ; and in all probability 
tlie “reverend Alcanor” in the “ Village Curate” — a poem abounding in natural 
history gems, and especially full of bird life — was the friend’s portrait of Gilbert 
White, curate of Selborne, of which living Magdalene College was, and still is, 
landlord and patron. 
But White, as a poet, was a copyist ; this is shown in his imitation of Virgil, 
Ceorgic, ii., 475 — 
“ Me vero primum dukes ante omnia Musae, 
Quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus amore, 
Accipiant, coelique vias et sidera monstrent,” 
itself an imitation of Lucretius (Z>« Rerum Natura) the first great nature poet, 
and father of “Natural History,” B.c. 50. Compare with Virgil’s lines those of 
White — 
“ Me, far above the rest, Selbornian scenes. 
The pendent forest and the mountain greens. 
Strike with delig’nt.” 
Again — 
“ But if gusts rise, the rushing forests roar. 
Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore.” 
Cowper has exactly the same thought (Task, Book i.) : — 
“Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds 
Exhilarate the spirit and restore 
The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds 
* Bibliography of Gilbert White, by E. A. Martin, F.G.S. The Roxburghe 
Press, 1897. 8vo. pp. xiii., 274 ; price 3s. 6d. 
