WHITE, GILBERT, one of the most pleasing and popular writers on natural history, was born in 1720, in the little village of Selborne, in Hampshire, which his writings have rendered familiar to all lovers of nature. He was the eldest son of John White, Esq., and his ancestors had been long connected with Selborne. He was educated at Basingstoke, under the elder Warton, father of the historian of English poetry. In 1739 he entered Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated at the usual time, and became a fellow; and his estimation at the university is attested by his election in 1752, to be one of the senior proctors. He possessed considerable acquirements, and might easily have obtained a college living; but he seemed insensible to the longings of ambition, and retired to his native village, where he devoted his life to the study of natural history from the best of all sources, the observation of nature. The principal results of his observations are contained in two series of letters to Mr Pennant and Daines Barrington, which have been repeatedly printed, and under the name of the Natural History of Selborne, have acquired a permanent place in English literature. Probably no work on natural history has found more admirers than this unpretending little treatise. It operates upon the reader with somewhat of the charm that characterizes Walton's Angler; and if many of
White. the disciples of the "gentle craft," owe their first love of its mysteries to the genial inspiration of "honest" Izaak, many of the students of natural history received their first impulse from the pleasant pages of Gilbert White. The style of his work is simple and graceful, possessing all the elegance of a highly cultivated mind and a refined taste, and free from the pedantry of the scholar. His observations of nature are distinguished for their minuteness and accuracy; and with little parade, formed the most important contribution of his time to the science which he so assiduously cultivated. Besides his Natural History, White wrote some letters on the antiquities of Selborne, and a few poetical pieces of some merit. He died in 1793.