lands had been transmitted to him through his great uncle Oliver Whitby, nephew to Sir Edward Ford. Thus the little estate in East Harting was part of the family property of Gilbert White, and showed that he was kinsman to the great squires of East and West Harting, as the Carylls and Fords had intermarried.
"An interesting entry in his Account Book marks not only that he was intimate with the clergy here, but that in all probability he knew Harting at a very early period of his life: —
"'Feb. 2, 1754.[1]Gave Dr. Durnford's servant at Harting, 3s; Mrs. Newlin's maid 3s.' He was here evidently staying two nights in Harting; and for one of these resided at the house of the widow of honest old parson John Newlin. It is pretty certain, therefore, that he must have known old Mr. Newlin himself, who lived at Harting from the commencement of his incumbency as Vicar, 1731, to the time of bis death, 1738. We may assume further, that, no doubt in consequence of bis family connections, Gilbert White was quite at home in Harting from an early period of his life, and that his facts relating to the South Downs were collected here. The following draft of a codicil to the will of Gilbert White is preserved in his own handwriting:—
"'Whereas I, the Revd. Gilbert White, of Selborne, in the County of South'ton, Clerk, have duly made and executed my last Will and Testament in writing, bearing date the second day of November last, and whereas since executing my said Will 1 have suffered a recovery of my estate at East Harting, in the county of Sussex, now I do hereby give and devise unto my all that, my Messuage, Farm Lauds, Tenements and Hereditaments, with the appurtenances situate and being in the Parish of East Harting, otherwise Harting, in the county of Sussex, called or known by the several names of Deane's, Boyes', Woodhouse and Maxwell's or by whatsoever other name or names the same or any part thereof is called or known. To hold unto him my said his Heirs and assigns for ever. And I do declare this to be a codicil to my said Will. Dated the—day of January, 1792."Considering the many visits which Gilbert White must have paid to his property at Harting, it is somewhat singular that lie has never mentioned it even by name in his ' Natural History of Selborne.' It is true that in writing an account of one parish he might have deemed it hardly relevant to record observations made in another, and that not an adjacent one, but at the same time one would almost have expected to find in his Letters some allusion to the rural scenery or the natural productions of a locality not far
- ↑ In Mr. Bell's recently published edition of White's 'Selborne' a transcript from one of Gilbert White's account-books is given, wherein this entry appeal's, under date Feb. 2, 1755 (vol. ii., p. 346).
