WHITE, Gilbert, English naturalist: h. Selborne, Hampshire, 18 July 1720; d. there, 26 June 1793. He was graduated from Oriel Col lege, Oxford, in 1743, and having taken deacon's orders in 1747, acted as curate to an uncle at Swarraton. After being ordained priest he was for a short period in 1751 curate to the vicar of Selborne. Appointed dean of his college in 1752 he soon after became curate of Durley, Hampshire. He failed to secure the provostship of Oriel in 1757, but in the same year obtained the vicarage of Morton Pinkney, in Northamp tonshire, which was in the gift of his college. He never resided on his Northamptonshire liv ing, but throughout his whole life remained closely associated with the Hampshire parish which he has made famous. About 1758 he gave up the Durley curacy for that of Faring don, near to his home, though for a time he acted as curate of West Deane, Wiltshire. White's great English classic 'The Natural His tory and Antiquities of Selborne,' the only work of the kind in the langauge to attain that rank, was published at the end of 1788, with the date 1789 on the title-page. It consists of letters to his two friends, Thomas Pennant, author of the 'British Zoology' and Dairies Barrington, who devised the form of 'Natural ist's Journal' which White kept from 1767, when he discontinued the 'Garden Kalendar) begun in 1751. In the preparation of the part on antiquities, compiled only when he had been in duced to publish, he was greatly assisted by Richard Chandler, the classical antiquary and traveler. His (Natural History of Selborne'
has won the enthusiastic admiration of men of widely different tastes, and has gone through a very large number of editions. Professor Newton says that such was White's keenness of observation, his undoubted errors are scarce worthy of notice. In America, where most of the plants and animals mentioned are, save to a few experts, known only by name, the popu larity of the work has been great. The most important editions after the first are the fol lowing: the so-called Markwick's or Aikin's (1802), including 'The Naturalist's Calendar,' which Dr. Aikin had compiled from White's papers and published in 1795, but excluding the 'Antiquities) • the 1813 octavo, including his poems for the first time; Mitford's (1813) ; Rennie's (1833) ; Bennett's (1837), based upon the preceding; Jardine and Jesse's (1851) ; Jardine's (1853); Hartinies (1875), one of the best. based upon Bennett s; Buckland's (1875), with a chapter on the 'Antiquities' by the Earl of Selborne; Bell's (1877), which superseded all previous ones, and may still be regarded as the best (see BELL, Titomas); Grant Allen's (1889), without the (Antiquities' ; and Bowd ler Sharpe's (1900-01), including the