lished somewhat of this sort, and as the length of my correspondence has sufficiently put your patience to the test, I shall here take a respectful leave of you and natural history together; and am, With all due deference and regard, Your most obliged, And most humble servant, Selborne, June 25, 1787. PAGE 3. 66 NOTES 'Selesburne, Seleburne, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, and Selborn, as it has been variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation; for sel signifies great, and burn, torrens, a brook or rivulet: so that the name seems to be derived from the great perennial stream that breaks out at the upper end of the village. Sel also signifies bonus, item, fæcundus fertilis."-White: Antiquities. Advertisement." The Priory of Selborne had been united to Magdalen College on its suppression some fifty years before the dissolution of monasteries. The author thanks the President and Fellows of the College for permission to search their archives for the documents given by him in the Antiquities. 5. Pennant, Thomas (1726-1798), was born and lived at Downing, near Holywell, Flintshire. He wrote at least eighteen separate books, chiefly natural history, local history, and accounts of his travels, of which the best known is his British Zoology (1766), to which White often has occasion to refer, and in which the author's indebtedness to White is acknowledged. 5-25. Letters I.-IX., Pennant, bear no date, and were written to serve as introductory to the actual correspondence (beginning with Letter x.) after its publication had been decided upon. Letter xliv., Barrington, and the remaining undated letters to the end of the book, were written to serve as conclusion to it. See Letter lxi., Barrington, in which White directly addresses, not his correspondent but, readers of his "work," referring to himself as the "author." 5. "Twelve parishes." The modern spelling of most of these and other names of places mentioned by White, varies slightly. 5. "fine "And water." White mentions water last. The angler or bather will find himself at a loss in this district. The neighbouring ponds of Oakhanger and Wolmer diminish unpleasantly in the dry months; and White's own perennial spring, called Well-head," notwithstanding his note in praise of its performance in 1781, somewhat ill supplies the present requirements of a parish whose population has since doubled. The system laid on to take the flow from this and other springs is, on the other hand, inadequate for saving and storing the copious winter supply. 256 PAGE 6. "White stone . . rank clay." These formations are now known to geologists respectively as the Upper Greensand and the Gault. They are so typically developed at Selborne that it is proposed to apply to them the name Selbornian." See Note, "Awful commotion," p. 278. 6. "Malm." The word is of great antiquity. The Anglo-Saxon mealm-stan, i.e., "malm-stone," is used by King Alfred (A.D. 880) in his translation of Orosius. It is a derivative of mal-an (Latin molere), to grind; and the original sense is "friable stuff," hence, sand, friable earth. In later times it is sometimes taken to mean soft or sticky earth, an unoriginal sense. The word is still in use in several English counties. The 6. "Well-head," says White elsewhere, "signifies spring-head, and not a deep pit from whence we draw water. iron door in the wall at the top of the town, behind which the hydraulic ram of the present water system is contained, bears the following words: "THIS WATER SUPPLY | WAS GIVEN TO SELBORNE BY VOLUNTARY SUBSCRIPTION IN MEMORY OF | GILBERT WHITE | 1894.' Hard by is a horse-trough: "PRESENTED BY"-here follows a lion's head embossed, flanked by a pair of windmills, the " arms " of the late Mr. Mills, of Portsmouth, a native of Selborne. 6. "The one to the south." White's editors usually amend his text here by placing a comma, instead of the period, after the word "north" : "the other to the north, the Selborne stream, makes," etc. This certainly more clearly indicates an antithesis probably intended by the author. The stream to the south springs at the far side of Nore Hill, a mile or two from the village, and forms the north branch of the youngling Rother. 7. "Temple and Blackmoor." "The manor house called Temple is at present [1729] a single building, running in length from south to north, and has been occupied as a common farm house from time immemorial." Temple has now disappeared. Blackmoor has been the seat of the Earls of Selborne since 1865. 7. "Shakey." "The wood is shakey, and towards the heart cup-shakey (that is to say, apt to separate in round pieces like cups), so that the inward parts are of no use," says White in his Observations, referring to the Selborne chestnut timber. 8. "The great storm in the year 1703." See Macaulay's essay on Addison for an account of this "amazing tempest." R PAGE 8. Ulmus folio latissimo scabro: Ulmus montana, the wych-elm, the timber of which was once used to make chests called wyches." 66 8. Ray, John (1627-1705), born at Black Notley, near Braintree, Essex, generally referred to as the father of natural history in this country, and "the first true systematist of the animal kingdom." He published about twenty-five separate works, was senior to, a friend of, and co-worker with, Willughby (see Note, p. 269), and obtains the praise of White himself for his "precision" (see Letter x., Barrington). His great successor, Linnæus, was born in 1707. 8. "The Plestor." "As Sir Adam [Gurdon, a successful soldier of fortune of the period: i.e., 1271] began to advance in years he found his mind influenced by the prevailing opinion of the reasonableness and efficacy of prayers for the dead; and therefore, in conjunction with his wife Constantia, in the year 1271, granted to the prior and convent of Selborne all his right and claim to a certain place, placed, called La Playstow, in the village aforesaid, in liberam, puram, et perpetuam eleemosinam. This Pleystow, locus ludorum, or play-place, is a level area near the church, of about forty-four yards by thirty-six, and is known now by the name of the Plestor."-White : Antiquities. 8.This venerable tree." "At this juncture [1271] probably the vast oak was planted by the prior, as an ornament to his new acquired market-place. According to this supposition the oak was aged four hundred and thirty-two years when blown down."-White: Antiquities. 8. "The vicar." "The living of Selborne was a very small vicarage; but being in the patronage of Magdalen College, in the university of Oxford, that society endowed it with the great tithes of Selborne, more than a century ago, and, since the year 1758, again with the great tithes of Oakhanger, called Bene's Parsonage: so that, together, it is become a respectable piece of preferment, to which one of the fellows is always presented. The vicar holds the great tithes, by lease, under the college. The great disadvantage of this living is, that it has not one foot of glebe near home. June [23], 1681. This living was now in such low estimation in Magdalen College, that it descended to a junior fellow, Gilbert White, M.A., who was instituted to it in the thirty-first year of his age. At his first coming he ceiled the chancel, and also floored and wainscoted the parlour and hall, which before were paved with stone and had naked walls; he enlarged the kitchen and brew-house, and dug a cellar and well: he PAGE also built a large new barn in the lower yard, removed the hovels in the front court, which he laid out in walks and borders; and entirely planned the back garden, before, a rude field with a stone-pit in the midst of it. By his will he gave and bequeathed the sum of forty pounds to be laid out in the most necessary repairs of the church: that is, in strengthening and securing such parts as seemed decaying and dangerous. With this sum two large buttresses were erected to support the east end of the south wall of the church; and the gable end wall of the west end of the south aisle was new built from the ground. 66 By his will also he gave 'One hundred pounds to be laid out on lands; the yearly rents whereof shall be employed in teaching the poor children of Selborne parish to read and write, and say their prayers and catechism, and to sew and knit, and be under the direction of his executrix as long as she lives; and, after her, under the direction of such of his children and their issue, as shall live in, or within five miles of, the said parish: and on failure of any such, then under the direction of the vicar of Selbourn for the time being; but still to the uses above-named.' With this sum were purchased, of Thomas Turville, of Hawkely, in the county of Southampton, yeoman, and Hannah his wife, two closes of freehold land, commonly called Collier's, containing, by estimation, eleven acres, lying in Hawkely aforesaid. These closes are let at this time, 1785, on lease, at the rate of three pounds by the year. "This vicar also gave by will two hundred pounds towards the repairs of the highways1 in the parish of Selborne. That sum was carefully and judiciously laid out in the summer of the year 1730, by his son John White, who made a solid and firm causey from Rood Green, all down Honey Lane, to a farm called Oak Woods, where the sandy soil begins."-White: Antiquities. This vicar, White's grandfather, died Feb. 13, 1727-8. 8. "Planted oaks." See White's Observations for a full discussion of the subject. 9. "Eyry"=aery, an eagle's nest. Commonly misspelt eyry (by confusion with M. E., ey, an egg). 9. "Beetle." The heavy mallet used in felling timber. 10. "Cardo." The hinge. 10. Linnæus, Karl (properly: von Linné, 1707-1778), born at Roeshult in Sweden; the greatest systematist in modern 1 "Such legacies were very common in former times, before any effectual laws were made for the repairs of highways.'-Sir John Cullum's Hawsted, p. 15."-White: Antiquities. |