GILBERT WHITE AND JOHN MULSO.*
* The Le,ters to Gilbert White of Selborne from his Intimate Friend and Con- temporary, the -Rev. John Mu/so. Edited• with! Notes and an Introduction, by Baslileigh Ilolt•White, M.A. Loudon: Ii. H. Porter. [7s. 6d. net]
THE correspondence between Gilbert White, the naturalist of Selborne, and his bosom friend John Mulso extended over forty-six years, and two hundred and twenty-nine letters have now been printed without any omissions. It is much to be regretted that White's letters to Mulso were destroyed while Mulso's letters to White were preserved ; but, if Mulso's letters are worth publishing at all, they may as well be presented to the reader in their entirety. Indeed, the reader who has patience and leisure to wade through a long volume of letters, printed with many mis- spellings, abbreviations, and capitals, will be rewarded by a curious picture of the life and thoughts of an eighteenth- century parson. Mulso and White were contemporaries at Oriel about 1740. They began writing to one another in 1744, and went on doing so until 1790. Mulso was vicar of Sunbury for many years. The latter part of his life was divided between Meon Stoke and Winchester. Mulso's uncle was John Thomas, D.D., who was in succession Bishop of Peterborough, Salisbury, and Winchester, and many of the nephew's letters refer to the hopes of advancement that he had from his uncle. Finally, after a struggling, impecunious,
• but patient life be became Prebendary of Winchester, and died at his prebendal house in 1791, aged sixty-nine. He lived to see the publication of his friend's book, and it is much to his credit that his letters show a proper appreciation of that charming and immortal classic. Whether he was inspired by a desire to please and flatter his friend we do not know. At all events, be praised The Natural History of Selborne to the skies. Mulso's sister was a once famous woman, known as Mrs. Chapone, who wrote Letters on the Improvement of the Mind Addressed to a Lady, and was the friend of Johnson, Richard- son, and other literary men. She once described her brother as "a diverting animal," "that comical creature." We do not find much trace of this in his letters, though he had no doubt an amiable nature, and lived the usual life of an estimable and idle clergyman. It is a misfortune, of course, that Mulso was not also a naturalist. Yet he thought it necessary to record the arrival of the swallow, cuckoo, and nightingale; but sometimes he disposes of them together with a general statement • that the " foreign birds " reached Sunbury that year on April 2nd or 3rd. " I cannot compose my Conscience even in my Bed ; the twittering in my Chimney puts me in Mind of You; & I say to Myself, I have not yet wrote to White." After a long courtship and engagement Mulso married in 1756. "I am a poor sculking Quail, whose very Love-song is plaintive." His wife was a good woman, and the daughter of Mr. William Young, of Devonshire. She bore four children, of whom we read much in the letters. White sent a soup tureen as a wedding present. The accounts of her ill-health and sufferings form very painful reading. Mrs. Mulso was not a naturalist either, and her husband apologises for it : "As to my wife, I don't beleive She cares a 'Farthing about the Difference between a Penguin and the Coloptera." Indeed, the reader wonders what tie there can have been, except the old Oxford friendship, between White and Mulso. There are a few references to public affairs,—the wars on the Continent and in America, the doings of the Fleet, the earth- quake at Lisbon, a ball at the Russian Ambassador's. These
things, we know, did not much interest White. Almost the only well-known person who is mentioned by Mulso is Richardson, the novelist :—
" I was prevented the writing farther yesterday by the Coming of my Surgeon and of Mr. Richardson. If you do not know whom I mean by that Name, You will recollect Him by his Title of author of Pamela & Clarissa. I need not say that such an Author proMises a pretty extraordinary Man in his own Character, but Mr. Richardson very well answers ye Prejudice which his Works raise in his Favour, and therefore is indeed an extraordinary man. He is in Person a short fat man, of an honest Countenance, but has ill Health & Shatter'd nerves."
There are occasionally references to books, to travels about England, including a long description of Castle Howard, and to
visits to London, including an account of the British Museum as it was in 1758 :-
"The weather is so bad and the Rains so continual that we could go to no public Place of Diversion ;.but we saw the British Musaeum, & were conducted all over it by Dr. Mattie. ,You who have had the supervisal of the Bodleian Library will perhaps think 50,000 volumes but a private Collection; but there are besides about five rooms full of Manuscripts; & four or five Rooms where the Virtuoso & the Naturalist have high enjoyment of Samples in their. Way : The House is at the same Time royal & the Prospect grand & delightful!. I gladly compounded fqr the loss of Town Diversions by this Entertainment."
At intervals White visited the Mulsos, and they in turn paid visits to Selborne. The references to these jaunts and to the improvements at the Wakes, the details of travel and the dis- comforts of life in the road-coach, are among the most readable bits in the letters :—
"Having told you that I am here, I must now toll you how I got hither. I believe you beard me set out or rather was sensible of my being turn'd off about half an Hour after three. Voili•ce quo vous appellez, renovare dolorem. I squeezed, myself with Ye utmost Difficulty in betwixt .a very fat & warm citizen and a Woman of pretty equal Size (excuse the greasy & stinking Truths that my unfortunate History obliges me to disclose & present to your Imagination) and after rubbing my Eyes and yawning open my mouth, the only things I was at Liberty to stir, I discovered over against me two Gentlemen who confined between them a good agreable Woman, who held at her knees and mine a•pretty little Girl of about five Years of Age, so that Ye Coach might be said to be full : You may imagine that ye Conversation was not very lively at that Time of the morning, but at last we open'd & indeed had ye Words past thro' a more agreable medium than our very fetid atmosphere, they might have past for very agre- able : I found two were rich merchants and the other a Clergy- man of Dorsetshire : they seemed all understanding agreable men. But alas neither the Conversation or ye Day which favour'd Us extremely, was able to compensate for ye prodigious and constant Heat we suffered."
Most of the letters are composed of trivialities and references to the affairs of daily life; apologies for not writing sooner ; comments on the severity of the winter ; news that some one has been brought to bed of a son, and that another was buried last week ; thanks for partridges and hares, which seem frequently to have arrived in a high condition. Many of the letters contain references to riding, which White, "the huzzar parson," urged his friend to continue for his health's sake. White also was being urged to look out for a suitable horse at a moderate price. Mulso was not much of a horseman, and pages are filled with the troubles and expenses of his stable, the soreness and stiffness lie suffered from, the stumbles of his horse, the lameness, the attempts of the farrier to cure it. " I
sold Jenny for two Guineas & picked a Purchaser who intends her for Breed ; and if I had not thought she would be well used, I would have had her shot out of Compassion; but I dare say she will make a fine Colt." Mulso was also occupied with a little bit of farming, and writes of his ploughings and sowings, the cutting of his grass and carrying of hay. The troubles with his farm-horses almost equalled those with his saddle-horses; but the desire of his friend that he should take exercise weighed upon him. " My Mare has got but three Legs, nevertheless I venture upon her very often & caper alone to Town: She does my business pretty well & I know you will love me for riding." Or again we read : "I have not been on Horseback a great while, you know I always preferred walking in frosty Weather. But spare me, spare me, dear Gil, & forgive a human Infirmity. I have left off ye cold Bath ever since ye first Frost." In the same letter we find Mulso wistful that death may open some preferment in the diocese of Peterborough. " I don't hear that any of the everlasting Prebendaries of Peterboro' are frozen this Winter : I reckon they are braced up for another Twelve month at least." At last Mr. Ogle, who was about to marry the Bishop's daughter, was provided with a valuable living, and poor Mulso's hopes rose. "You say well that Ogle's Prefer- ment is a Gain to me; it is so; for I am convinced that 'till his Portion is filled up, mine must stand as it is ; Yet I should be very glad of a stall at Peterboro', that little Belvidere I thought bad been nearer to me than I found it." It is still considered polite, in the middle classes of this country, to ask upon meeting an acquaintance after all his relatives by name, and to inquire in turn how they do and What is the state of their health. We do not know whether White did so in his letters, but we have never read such terrible details of sicknesses, maladies, accidents, and com- plaints as are contained in Mulso's letters. At the end of almost every letter we have a list of relatives with their condition and their ailments. " Feavers," " Hysterics," "violent Headache," " Bellyachs," "Humours," "Ye Influenza from London," " Ague," " Bile," " Scorbutic habits," not to mention gout and rheumatism and a number of other diseases, are but a hundredth part of those from which the unfortunate neighbours and relations of Mulso Buffered. In many of the letters we find something like the following : "I was very ill on Sunday last, taken at Dinner both in my Head and Bowells : I am got much better in my Head (the most alarming Quarter) & better in my Bowells, tho' I dare not yet return to my Tankard." Or else we read: "my sister Chapone has been ill in Town & has had a violent bleeding at her Nose, by which she lost 20 ounces, which is a great pull at her strength." The reader must forgive these details, but without them no idea of Mulso's letters can be given. The letters contain a good many references to Oxford politics, to White's proctorship, and to the squabbles of the Fellows of Oriel. The letters also, as Mr. Holt-White reminds us in the introduction which be has written, afford the only existing evidence of a great event in White's life, his unsuccessful candidature for the provost- ship of Oriel in 1757. Everything connected with White of Selborne must have some interest to us ; we cannot help regretting again, as we said at the beginning, that his letters to Mulso were destroyed. This does not imply that we regret that Mulso's letters to White were preserved.
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