The Natural History of Selborne

The Natural History of Selborne

Gilbert White

INVITATION TO SELBORNE.

See, Selborne spreads her boldest beauties round

The varied valley, and the mountain ground,

Wildly majestic ! What is all the pride,

Of flats, with loads of ornaments supplied ?—

Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense,

Compared with Nature’s rude magnificenee.

Arise, my stranger, to these wild scenes haste;

The unfinish’d farm awaits your forming taste:

Plan the pavilion, airy, light, and true;

Through the high arch call in the length’ning view;

Expand the forest sloping up the hill;

Swell to a lake the scant, penurious rill;

Extend the vista; raise the castle mound

In antique taste, with turrets ivy-crown’d:

O’er the gay lawn the flow’ry shrub dispread,

Or with the blending garden mix the mead;

Bid China’s pale, fantastic fence delight;

Or with the mimic statue trap the sight.

Oft on some evening, sunny, soft, and still,

The Muse shall lead thee to the beech-grown hill,

To spend in tea the cool, refreshing hour,

Where nods in air the pensile, nest-like bower;

Or where the hermit hangs the straw-clad cell,

Emerging gently from the leafy dell,

By fancy plann’d; as once th’ inventive maid

Met the hoar sage amid the secret shade:

Romantic spot ! from whence in prospect lies

Whate’er of landscape charms our feasting eyes’—

The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture plain,

The russet fallow, or the golden grain,

The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light,

Till all the fading picture fail the sight.

Each to his task; all different ways retire:

Cull the dry stick; call forth the seeds of fire;

Deep fix the kettle’s props, a forky row,

Or give with fanning hat the breeze to blow.

Whence is this taste, the furnish’d hall forgot,

To feast in gardens, or th’ unhandy grot ?

Or novelty with some new charms surprises,

Or from our very shifts some joy arises.

Hark, while below the village bells ring round,

Echo, sweet nymph, returns the soften’d sound;

But if gusts rise, the rushing forests roar,

Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore.

Adown the vale, in lone, sequester’d nook,

Where skirting woods imbrown the dimpling brook,

The ruin’d convent lies: here wont to dwell

The lazy canon midst his cloister’d cell,

While Papal darkness brooded o’er the land,

Ere Reformation made her glorious stand:

Still oft at eve belated shepherd swains

See the cowl’d spectre skim the folded plains.

To the high Temple would my stranger go,

The mountain-brow commands the woods below:

In Jewry first this order found a name,

When madding Croisades set the world in flame;

When western climes, urged on by pope and priest

Pour’d forth their minions o’er the deluged East:

Luxurious knights, ill suited to defy

To mortal fight Turcestan chivalry.

Nor be the parsonage by the Muse forgot —

The partial bard admires his native spot;

Smit with its beauties, loved, as yet a child,

Unconscious why, its capes, grotesque and wild.

High on a mound th’ exalted gardens stand,

Beneath, deep valleys, scoop’d by Nature’s hand.

A Cobham here, exulting in his art,

Might blend the general’s with the gardener’s part;

Might fortify with all the martial trade

Of rampart, bastion, fosse, and palisade;

Might plant the mortar with wide threat’ning bore,

Or bid the mimic cannon seem to roar:

Now climb the steep, drop now your eye belong

Where round the blooming village orchards grow;

There, like a picture, lies my lowly seat,

A rural, shelter’d, unobserved retreat.

Me far above the rest Selbornian scenes,

The pendent forests, and the mountain greens,

Strike with delight; there spreads the distant view,

That gradual fades till sunk in misty blue:

Here Nature hangs her slopy woods to sight,

Rills purl between and dart a quivering light.

SELBORNE HANGER.

A WINTER PIECE, TO THE MISS B*****S

In a series of letters addressed to

THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

and

The Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON

The Author of the following Letters takes the liberty, with all proper

deference, of laying before the public his idea of parochial history,

which, he thinks, ought to consist of natural productions and

occurrences as well as antiquities. He is also of opinion 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, which are still wanting in several parts of this

kingdom, and in particular in the county of Southampton.

And here he seizes the first opportunity, though a late one, of returning his most grateful acknowledgments to the reverend the President and the reverend and worthy the Fellows of Magdalen College in the University of Oxford, for their liberal behaviour in permitting their archives to be searched by a member of their own society, so far as the evidences therein contained might respect the parish and priory of Selborne. To that gentleman also, and his assistant, whose labours and attention could only be equalled by the very kind manner in which they were bestowed, many and great obligations are also due.

Of the authenticity of the documents above-mentioned there can be no doubt, since they consist of the identical deeds and records that were removed to the College from the Priory at the time of its dissolution; and, being carefully copied on the spot, may be depended on as genuine; and, never having been made public before, may gratify the curiosity of the antiquary, as well as establish the credit of the history.

If the writer should at all appear to have induced any of his readers

to pay a more ready attention to the wonders of the Creation, too

frequently overlooked as common occurrences; or if he should by any

means, through his researches, have lent an helping hand towards the

enlargement of the boundaries of historical and topographical

knowledge; or if he should have thrown some small light upon ancient

customs and manners, and especially on those that were monastic, his

purpose will be fully answered. But if he should not have been

successful in any of these his intentions, yet there remains this

consolation behind—that these his pursuits, by keeping the body and

mind employed, have, under Providence, contributed to much health and

cheerfulness of spirits, even to old age:—and, what still adds to his

happiness, have led him to the knowledge of a circle of gentlemen whose

intelligent communications, as they have afforded him much pleasing

information, so, could he flatter himself with a continuation of them,

would they ever be deemed a matter of singular satisfaction and

improvement.

GIL. WHITE.

Selborne, January 1st, 1788.