This long placid life of continuous observation and industrious notation, passed in what has been irreverently called "single blessedness," and apparently without either romance or affliction, was a congenial atmosphere for the production of this little masterpiece. We have now and then a glimpse of the dull conformity of the inhabitants. "For more than a century past," White reports to his Bishop, "there does not appear to have been one Papist, or any Protestant Dissenter of any denomination." We also read, "Selborne is not able to maintain a schoolmaster," Our naturalist also abhorred the "dangerous doctrines of levellers and republicans"; he writes, "I was born and bred a gentleman, and hope I shall be allowed to die such"; while he explains to a correspondent, that "the reason you have so many bad neighbours is your nearness to a great factious manufacturing town." He was as lovable as a Vicar of Wakefield, but not so foolish; he seems to have been really outside politics; and we are told nothing as to his theological views. He was probably a model village priest, and a true friend to his parishioners.
This completes our purview of these two charming volumes, which must find a place with all Selbornian literature. They give us the life of the author of the book we have so often read. The portrait given as frontispiece is probably apocryphal, as we are distinctly told elsewhere that "no portrait or sketch of any kind was ever made of him."
Of all books of travel, those written by naturalists for the perusal of naturalists are perhaps the most charming. The cabinet ornithologist can in fancy see his dried skins as living birds, and experience the difference between these creatures in their native haunts, and their mummified remains in cabinet drawers. This book is a revised and amalgamated form of two previous publications by Mr. Seebohm, strangely entitled 'Siberia in Europe,' and 'Siberia in Asia,' both previously noticed at the time of their publication in these pages; and, like "Japhet in search of a Father," this most interesting volume is still in want of a consistent title, the 'Birds of Siberia' being, strictly, a misnomer.
