Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/15



HERE is a singular parallel in the popularity of the two old books, the "Complete Angler" of Isaac Walton, and the "Natural History of Selborne," by the Rev. Gilbert White. This popularity has gone on steadily increasing in both cases, until both books are of that class which everyone has read or is supposed to have read, or, with reference to the coming generation of readers, ought to read. The cause of the esteem in which the two books are held is mainly the same. Honest, manly, and godly in their tone, simple and clear in their style, with no ostentation, clearness and accuracy of observation in those subjects which each particularly affected, and with the charm of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm with respect to the glorious "out of doors," they are models for all succeeding writers on kindred subjects. The Editor of this Volume, when a boy, wrote almost his first essay on White and Walton, little thinking at the time that he would ever have the pleasure of editing both books for the series in which this appears.

The temptation which besets any Naturalist author who undertakes to edit such a work as this, is to use it as a line on which to hang out his own knowledge of Natural History. Such a course, though pleasant to oneself, is not fair to the original Author. The present Editor has done his best to limit the use of notes (a nuisance at the best) to as few as might be consistent with the