Selborne

“ The union of man and nature which yields the naturalist of Selborne is a process of time. Our soil and our sympathy are centuries savager than England's. We still look at our lands with the spirit of the ax; we are yet largely concerned with the contents of the gizzards of our birds. Shall the crows and cherry-birds be exterminated? the sparrows transported? the owls and hawks put behind bars? Not until the collectors at Washington pronounce upon these first questions can we hope for a naturalist who will find White's wonders in the chimney-swallow. ”

“ Lord and Lady Selborne have been here. He has a stiff manner, but warms into much pleasantness, and she is very genial: their daughter, Sophy, is a union of both. I went with Lord Selborne and Miss Palmer to Strathfieldsaye. The Duke (of Wellington) , dressed like a poor pensioner, received us in his uncomfortable room, where Lord Selborne, who has a numismatical mania, was glad to stay for two hours examining coins. Meanwhile the Duke, finding we were really interested, took Miss Palmer and me upstairs, and showed us all his relics. ”

“ There are few quails, because they more affect open fields than enclosures; after harvest some few landrails are seen.
The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the forest, is a vast district. Those who tread the bounds are employed part of three days in the business, and are of opinion that the outline, in all its curves and indentings, does not comprise less than thirty miles.
The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by the Hanger from the strong westerly winds. The air is soft, but rather moist from the effluvia of so many trees; yet perfectly healthy and free from agues. ”

“ He had a curacy at Faringdon, an adjoining parish, until 1784, when he became curate of Selborne. He several times refused livings which were offered to him, though he accepted one which required neither residence, service, nor attention on his part, the duties being performed by others. White had a sufficiency of income to enable him to live a quiet and comfortable life in the old house at Selborne. He was never married ”

“ At all periods of his life a devout and loyal son of the church of England, Selborne admirably illustrated her history and literature both in his hymnal, entitled ‘The Book of Praise’ (Golden Treasury series) , London, 1863, and in his ‘Notes of some Passages in the Liturgical History of the English Church’ (London, 1878, 8vo) . He also contributed to the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ 9th edit. ”

“ But best monument of all is that association of friends to birds and beasts, the Selborne Society, that, taking its name from Gilbert White’s old home, owns him as master in many branches and local centres throughout England. When the centenary of the simple naturalist’s death was celebrated in 1893, the large attendance at Selborne of members of the Society showed that here lies one whose memory the lovers of nature and wild life will not willingly let die. ”

“ Selborne, Aug. 15, 1775.
Dear Sir,
There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute creation, independent of sexual attachment: the congregating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable instance.
Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay one minute in a field by themselves: the strongest fences cannot restrain them. My neighbour’s horse will not only not stay by himself abroad, but he will not bear to be left alone in a strange stable without discovering the utmost impatience, and endeavouring to break the rack and manger with his fore feet. ”

“ Selden, Kemble, and Bishop Stubbs admit, but Lord Selborne denies, the above to be a genuine law of King Athelstan. Lord Selborne criticises the titles of Anglo-Saxon laws made nearly 1,000 years ago in the same critical and technical manner as he would one passed at the present time. Here is an example. The Church Grith law begins thus: “This is one of the ordinances which the King of the English composed with the counsel of his Witan.” Here is Lord Selborne’s note: “This form of expression is singular. I do not think that anything exactly like it is to be found elsewhere.” ”

“ The next day we went to ‘White’s Selborne,’ through bowery lanes, where the hedges are all bound together by clematis. It is a beautiful village, just under a wooded hill called ‘the Hanger.’ The old house of Gilbert White is now inhabited by a striking old man, Mr. Bell, a retired dentist, the beneficence, the ‘Bon Dieu,’ of the neighbourhood. He showed us his lovely sunny lawn, with curious trees and shrubs, sloping up to the rich wooded hillside, and, in the house, the stick, barometer, and spectacles of Gilbert White. ”

“ By a thoroughly good naturalist Kingsley may have meant a thoroughly good nature-writer, for I think he had in mind Gilbert White, who certainly was a thoroughly good naturalist, and who certainly knew his own parish thoroughly. In the letters from which I have quoted the gentle rector was writing the natural history of Selborne, his parish. But how could he write the natural [Pg 120] history of Selborne when his tortoise was away over in Sussex! ”

“ Although not so fortunate in its surroundings as Selborne, with {198} its Lyth and flowery Bourne and wooded Hanger, Farringdon village, with its noble church and fine old farm-buildings and old cottages, is the better village of the two. At the side of the churchyard there is an old oast-house, now used as a barn, which for quaintness and beauty has hardly its match in England. The churchyard itself is a pretty, peaceful wilderness, deep in grass, with ivy and bramble hanging to the trees, and spreading over tombs and mounds. ”

“ The village of Selborne presents no more special features of interest nor greater facilities for the study of Natural History than hundreds of other of our charming English villages; and it is the patient and close observation by one man of the natural world around him which has given it a name above its fellows. The general features of it do not vary very much from the time of White; and any description of it here would only challenge comparison with the close description of it given by the Author; but of the author himself we may tell all we know, for in his modesty he has told us nothing. ”

“ No naturalist can now converse intelligibly in any other language than that of the celebrated Swede. And impartiality compels us to say, that we are disappointed in not finding a particular account of the tillage of the district where Selborne is situate. A person with this writer's patient observation would have made many remarks highly valuable. Men of intelligence, like him, are wanted to promote an intimacy between the library and the plough. The man of books sees many errors which he supposes he could correct; while the practical cultivator laughs at the essays of the theorist. ”

“ That Lord Selborne was a truly religious man it is impossible to doubt: his whole life was regulated and inspired by a sense of his duty towards God and his fellowmen, and a long life spent amid the temptations of legal and public life left not the faintest stain on his memory. He was a devout member of the Church of England, to which he looked up with unstinted affection and reverence ”

“ Notwithstanding what Linnaeus says, I cannot be induced to believe that they are birds of prey.
This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at Selborne. In the first place considerable flocks of cross-beaks (loxiae curvirostrae) have appeared this summer in the pine-groves belonging to this house; the water-ousel is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes river, near Newhaven; and the Cornish chough builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore. ”

“ Selborne, “is contributed by a noted historian, who of late seems to have given his most serious attention to verse. I am glad to have the opportunity of laying before you this exquisite production, which gives an accurate review of our travels thus far, and, as the dullest reader must admit” (“Don’t look at me!” put in Tom) , “blends instruction with poetry with the most delightful result. ”

“ The Naturalist. GLEANINGS IN NATURAL HISTORY.
Observers of Nature seem to be just now appreciating the observation of the benevolent Gilbert White, of Selborne, who lived and died in the last century: "that if stationary men would pay some attention to the districts on which they reside, and would publish their thoughts respecting the objects that surround them, from such materials might be drawn the most complete county histories." ”

“ Selborne, October 6th, 1768 It is I find in zoology as it is in botany; all nature is so full that that district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined. Several birds, which are said to belong to the north only, are it seems often in the south. I have discovered this summer three species of birds with us, which writers mention as only to be seen in the northern counties. ”

“ A young man of another type, inheriting from the Cecils on the one side, and from his grandfather, the first Lord Selborne, on the other, the best traditions of English Conservatism and English churchmanship—open-eyed, patriotic, devout—has been lost to the nation in Robert A.S. Palmer, the second son of Lord and Lady Selborne, affectionately known to an ardent circle of friends whose hopes were set on him, as "Bobbie Palmer." ”

“ I have often thought that Lord Selborne’s error arose in his assuming that all the manuscripts which are now in the Worcester volume, Nero, A. 1, were in the same volume when Selden and Spelman consulted it during the life of Sir Robert. If I am right, it is a clear proof how unsound it is to draw inferences from negative evidence, and how careless he must have been in not having made himself quite certain that the “document” was in the volume for them to see. As this is a vital point in the discussion, I have devoted the whole of chapter x. in defence of this Church Grith law. ”

“ Do these different notes proceed from different species, or only from various individuals? The same person finds upon trial that the note of the cuckoo (of which we have but one species) varies in different individuals; for, about Selborne wood, he found they were mostly in D: he heard two sing together, the one in D, the other in D sharp, who made a disagreeable concert: he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer-forest some in C. As to nightingales, he says that their notes are so short, and their transitions so rapid, that he cannot well ascertain their key. ”

“ Gilbert White never married, but lived in peaceful performance of light clerical duties and enjoyment of those observations of nature which his book records. His brothers, who shared his love of nature, aided instead of thwarting him in his studies of the natural history of Selborne, and as their lives were less secluded and they did not remain unmarried, they provided him with a family of young people to care about, for he lived to register the births of sixty-three nephews and nieces. ”

“ Selborne.
Gentlemen who have outlets might contrive to make ornament subservient to utility: a pleasing eye-trap might also contribute to promote science: an obelisk in a garden or park might be both an embellishment and an heliotrope.
Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advantage of a good horizon, might, with little trouble, make two heliotropes; the one for the winter, the other for the summer solstice: and the two erections might be constructed with very little expense ”

“ On the second of February the thaw persisted; and on the 3d swarms of little insects were frisking and sporting in a court-yard at South Lambeth, as if they had felt no frost. Why the juices in the small bodies and smaller limbs of such minute beings are not frozen is a matter of curious inquiry.
* At Selborne the cold was greater than at any other place that the author could hear of with certainty: though some reported at the time that at a village in Kent, the thermometer fell two degrees below zero, viz., 34 degrees below the freezing point. ”

“ It has been suggested by Lord Selborne that he compiled the MS. 265 at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, called the Worcester MS., to which a later hand has prefixed the title 'Liber penitentialis Egberti' (Nasmith, Catalogue Librorum, p. 310) . ”

“ New ed., with Engravings. 4to, orig. boards rebound in half mor., uncut, 588 pp., 12 plates, including the rare folding frontis. view of Selborne, and rare colored plate of Hybrid Pheasant. London, 1813.$12.00
949. White, Rev. Gilbert. Natural History of Selborne. With Additions by Sir Wm. Jardine. 12mo, half mor., first Jardine ed., frontis., 343 pp. Book-plate of W. Russell West, Phila. Artist. Edinburgh, 1829.$3.00
950. White, Rev. G. The Natural History of Selborne. Arranged for Young Persons. 12mo, ppr. ”

“ LL.D. of Cambridge University. From his early years he was a member of the Mercers' Company, as his father and grandfather had been before him, and he was elected master in 1876. During his mastership he visited the company's estates in Ireland, and also attended carefully to home affairs.
Selborne's portrait in oils, as an old man, by G. F. Watts, R.A., hangs in the drawing-room at Lincoln's Inn, where also an engraving by W. Holl, from a sketch in profile by Mr. Richmond, R.A., shows him in early manhood. A third portrait, by Mr. Ouless, is in Magdalen College hall, Oxford ”

“ An instance of vast longevity in such a poor reptile!
Letter VIII To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Dec. 20, 1770.
Dear Sir,
The birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows (passeres torquati) .
There are doubtless many home internal migrations within this kingdom that want to be better understood: witness those vast flocks of hen chaffinches that appear with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among them. Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it should seem very improbable that any one district should produce such numbers of these little birds ”