CLXVII.

Miss Hecky Mulso was Gilbert White's first and only love. He did not succeed in persuading her to marry him, and in 1760, in her thirty-fourth year, she became Mrs. Chapone, afterwards famous as the author of 'Letters to a Young Lady.' But the friendship continued, and it was in answer to some verses addressed to Timothy, the famous Selborne tortoise, that White wrote this letter. By some whim of old bachelor coquetry he makes Timothy address the lady by her long-dropped maiden

name.

Gilbert White to Hester Chapone.

Selborne: August 31, 1784.

Most respectable Lady,—Your letter gave me great satisfaction, being the first that ever I was honor'd with. It is my wish to answer you in your own way; but I never could make a verse in my life, so you must be contented with plain prose. Having seen but little of this great world, conversed but little and read less, I feel myself much at a loss how to entertain so intelligent a correspondent. Unless you will let me write about myself, my answer will be very short indeed.

Know then that I am an American and was born in the year 1734 in the Province of Virginia in the midst of a Savanna that lay between a large tobacco plantation and a creek of the sea. Here I spent my youthful days among my relations with much satisfaction, and saw around me many venerable kinsmen, who had attained to great ages, without any interruption from distempers. Longevity is so general among our species that a funeral is quite a strange occurrence. I can just remember the death of my great-greatgrandfather, who departed this life in the 160th year of his age. Happy should I have been in the enjoyment of my native climate and the society of my friends had not a sea-boy, who was wandering about to see what he could pick up, surprized me as I was sunning myself under a bush; and whipping me into his wallet, carryed me aboard his ship. The circumstances of our voyage are not worthy a recital; I only remember that the rippling of the water against the sides of our vessel as we sailed along was a very lulling and composing sound, which served to sooth my slumbers as I lay in the hold. We had a short voyage, and came to anchor,

on the coast of England in the harbour of Chichester. In that city my kidnapper sold me for half a-crown to a country gentleman, who came up to attend an election. I was immediately packed in a hand-basket, and carryed, slung by the servant's side, to their place of abode. As they rode very hard for forty miles, and I had never been on horseback before, I found myself somewhat giddy from my airy jaunt. My purchaser, who was a great humorist, after shewing me to some of his neighbours and giving me the name of Timothy, took little further notice of me; so I fell under the care of his lady, a benevolent woman, whose humane attention extended to the meanest of her retainers.

With this gentlewoman I remained almost 40 years, living in a little walled in court in the front of her house, and enjoying much quiet and as much satisfaction as I could expect without society. At last this good old lady dyed in a very advanced age, such as a tortoise would call a good old age; and I then became the property of her nephew. This man, my present master, dug me out of my winter retreat, and, packing me in a deal box, jumbled me 80 miles in post-chaises to my present place of abode. I was sore shaken by this expedition, which was the worst journey I ever experienced. In my present situation I enjoy many advantages such as the range of an extensive garden, affording a variety of sun and shade, and abounding in lettuces, poppies, kidney beans, and many other salubrious and delectable herbs and plants, and especially with a great choice of delicate gooseberries! But still at times I miss my good old mistress, whose grave and regular deportment suited best with my disposition. For you must know that my master is what they call, a naturalist, and much visited by people of that turn, who often put him on whimsical experiments, such as feeling my pulse, putting me in a tub of water to try if I can swim, &c., and twice in the year I am carried to the grocer's to be weighed, that it may be seen how much I am wasted during the months of my abstinence, and how much I gain by feasting in the summer. Upon these occasions I am placed in the scale on my back, where I sprawl about to the great diversion of the shop-keeper's children. These matters displease me; but there is another that much hurts my pride: I mean that contempt shown for my understanding which these Lords of the Creation are very apt to discover, thinking that nobody knows anything but themselves. I heard my

master say that he expected that I should some day tumble down the ha-ha; whereas I would have him to know that I can discern a precipice from plain ground as well as himself. Sometimes my master repeats with much seeming triumph the following lines, which occasion a loud laugh.

Timotheus placed on high
Amidst the tuneful choir,

With flying fingers touched the lyre.

For my part I see no wit in the application; nor know whence the verses are quoted, perhaps from some prophet of his own, who, if he penned them for the sake of ridiculing tortoises, bestowed his pains, I think, to poor purposes. These are some of my grievances; but they sit very light on me in comparison of what remains behind. Know then, tender-hearted lady, that my greatest misfortune, and what I have never divulged to any one before, is-the want of society of my own kind. This reflection is always uppermost in my own mind, but comes upon me with irresistible force every spring. It was in the month of May last that I resolved to elope from my place of confinement, for my fancy had represented to me that probably many agreeable tortoises of both sexes might inhabit the heights of Baker's Hill or the extensive plains of the neighbouring meadow, both of which I could discern from the terrass. One sunny morning, therefore, I watched my opportunity, found the wicket open, eluded the vigilance of Thomas Hoar, and escaped into the saint-foin, which began to be in bloom, and thence into the beans. I was missing eight days, wandering in this wilderness of sweets, and exploring the meadow at times. But my pains were all to no purpose; I could find no society such as I wished and sought for. I began to grow hungry, and to wish myself at home. I therefore came forth in sight, and surrendered myself up to Thomas, who had been inconsolable in my absence. Thus, Madam, have I given you a faithful account of my satisfactions and sorrows, the latter of which are mostly uppermost. You are a lady, I understand, of much sensibility. Let me therefore, make my case your own in the following manner; and then you will judge of my feelings.

Suppose you were to be kidnapped away to-morrow, in the bloom

of your life, to a land of Tortoises, and were never to see again for fifty years a human face!!! Think on this, dear lady, and pity

Your sorrowful Reptile

TIMOTHY.

CLXVIII.

Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, the writer of an Essay on the Genius of Shakespeare, was the leader of the lady-wits of her day. In concert with Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Ord she instituted those intellectual réunions from which the term 'blue-stocking arose. Female pedants, as this term 'blue-stocking' has grown to mean, these women certainly were not; they were highly gifted and accomplished lovers of society, whose chief aim was to supersede the prevailing occupation of card-playing by conversation parties. Mrs. Chapone had already opened up an attack against the fashionable vice of gambling in No. 10 of the 'Rambler.' From small literary breakfast parties Mrs. Montagu advanced to evening assemblies for conversation, and her house in Hill Street was visited by such brilliant talkers as Dr. Johnson, Lord Lyttleton, Garrick, Pulteney, Mason, Burke, Lord Althorp, Mrs. Thrale, Madame d'Arblay, Horace Walpole, Mrs. Buller (who could hold her own for an hour and more in argument against Dr. Johnson), and Stillingfleet. The lastnamed was a distinguished converser who always wore blue stockings, and his occasional absence was so much felt that it became a common saying, 'We can do nothing without the blue stockings.' These meetings soon came to be called basbleu assemblies. In her own generation Mrs. Montagu was without a superior in the art of letter writing.

Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu to Gilbert West.

Sandleford: September 3, 1753.

I am much obliged to my dear cousin, for his kind and agreeable letter, which gave me a higher pleasure and more intense delight, than those rural objects which employed my attention in my walks, or filled the magic lantern of my mind, in those noonday dreams, you suppose to have amused me. You are mistaken, when you imagine I sent invitations to beaux and belles, to fill the vacant apartments of my mind. True indeed, that there may be empty space enough to receive French hoops, and, from the same reason, an echo to repeat French sentiments; but there are few of the fine world whom I should invite into my mind, and fewer still, who are familiar enough there, to come unasked. I make use of

these seasons of retirement and leisure, to do like the good housewives, to sweep the rooms, range the little homely furniture in order, and deck them with a little sage and other herbs of grace, as they are called, and then hope the fairies will come and visit them, and not the dull creatures of earth's mould, of whom I have enough when I am in town. But you are a welcome and a frequent guest, because you bring with you those virtues and graces, whose presence I would desire. I am pleased with your praise of Molière, but not with your application of his Misanthrope. When virtue and wisdom live out of the world, they grow delicate, but it is too severe to call that moroseness; and, perhaps, they lose something of their purity, when they mix with the crowd, and abate in strength, as they improve in flexibility. There is a limit, and a short one too, beyond which human virtue cannot go; a hair's breadth beyond the line, and it is vice. I am now satisfied of what I had before believed, (as you seem so much to admire the Misanthrope), that it is far beyond all comedies that ever were written. The character being so entirely kept up, and the error, though every where visible, no where monstrous. The Misanthrope has the same moroseness in his love suit and his law suit; he is as rigid and severe to a bad verse as a bad action, and as strict in a salutation in the street or address in a drawing-room, as he would be in his testimony in a court of justice; right in the principle, wrong only in the excess, you cannot hate him when he is unpleasant, nor despise him when he is absurd. When the groundwork of a character is virtuous, whatever fantastic forms or uncouth figures may be wrought upon it, it cannot appear absolutely odious or ridiculous. On the contrary, where the ground is vicious, however prettily adorned or gayly coloured, set it in open day, it will be detestable; of which we have an instance in this play; we hate and despise the lively agreeable coquette, as soon as we discover her, and esteem the rigid unamiable Misanthrope. I think my young cousin can hardly have a better amusement than reading Molière; from whose delicate wit and nice satirical touch, he will find that not only the worst passions want correction and restraint, but the best regulation. The first prayer I should make, if I had a son, would be that he might be free from vice; the second, that he might be free from absurdity, the least grain of it spoils a whole character, and I do not know any