The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1, by
Gilbert White, Edited by Henry Morley

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Title: The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1

Author: Gilbert White

Editor: Henry Morley

Release Date: March 29, 2007 [eBook #20933]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,
VOL. 1***

This eBook was transcribed by Les Bowler.

CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY.

THE
NATURAL HISTORY
OF
SELBORNE

BY
THE REV. GILBERT WHITE A.M.

VOL. I.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
1887

INTRODUCTION.

Gilbert White was born in the village of Selborne on the 18th of July, in
the year 1720. His father was a gentleman of good means, with a house at
Selborne and some acres of land. Gilbert had his school training at
Basingstoke, from Thomas Warton, the father of the poet of that name, who
was born at Basingstoke in 1728, six years younger than his brother
Joseph, who had been born at Dunsford, in Surrey. Thomas Warton, their
father, was the youngest of three sons of a rector of Breamore, in the
New Forest, and the only son of the three who was not deaf and dumb.
This Thomas, the elder, was an able man, who obtained a fellowship at
Magdalen College, Oxford, became vicar of Basingstoke, in Hampshire, and
was there headmaster of the school to which young Gilbert White was sent.
He was referred to in Amhurst's "Terrae Filius" as "a reverend poetical
gentleman;" he knew Pope, and had credit enough for his verse to hold the
office of Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1718 to 1728. His genius
for writing middling verse passed on to his more famous sons, Joseph and
Thomas, and they both became in due time Oxford Professors of Poetry.

Gilbert White passed on from school to Oxford,