The Natural History of Selborne
By Gilbert White (1789)
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White (1789). Unabridged Charlotte Mason living book edition for Form III-VI Natural History & Science.
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Chapter 1: Invitation To Selborne
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 1
See, Selborne spreads her boldest beauties round
The varied valley, and the mountain ground,
Wildly majestic ! What is all the pride,
Of flats, with loads of ornaments supplied ?—
Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense,
Compared with Nature’s rude magnificenee.
Arise, my stranger, to these wild scenes haste;
The unfinish’d farm awaits your forming taste:
Plan the pavilion, airy, light, and true;
Through the high arch call in the length’ning view;
Expand the forest sloping up the hill;
Swell to a lake the scant, penurious rill;
Extend the vista; raise the castle mound
In antique taste, with turrets ivy-crown’d:
O’er the gay lawn the flow’ry shrub dispread,
Or with the blending garden mix the mead;
Bid China’s pale, fantastic fence delight;
Or with the mimic statue trap the sight.
Oft on some evening, sunny, soft, and still,
The Muse shall lead thee to the beech-grown hill,
To spend in tea the cool, refreshing hour,
Where nods in air the pensile, nest-like bower;
Or where the hermit hangs the straw-clad cell,
Emerging gently from the leafy dell,
By fancy plann’d; as once th’ inventive maid
Met the hoar sage amid the secret shade:
Romantic spot ! from whence in prospect lies
Whate’er of landscape charms our feasting eyes’—
The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture plain,
The russet fallow, or the golden grain,
The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light,
Till all the fading picture fail the sight.
Each to his task; all different ways retire:
Cull the dry stick; call forth the seeds of fire;
Deep fix the kettle’s props, a forky row,
Or give with fanning hat the breeze to blow.
Whence is this taste, the furnish’d hall forgot,
To feast in gardens, or th’ unhandy grot ?
Or novelty with some new charms surprises,
Or from our very shifts some joy arises.
Hark, while below the village bells ring round,
Echo, sweet nymph, returns the soften’d sound;
But if gusts rise, the rushing forests roar,
Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore.
Adown the vale, in lone, sequester’d nook,
Where skirting woods imbrown the dimpling brook,
The ruin’d convent lies: here wont to dwell
The lazy canon midst his cloister’d cell,
While Papal darkness brooded o’er the land,
Ere Reformation made her glorious stand:
Still oft at eve belated shepherd swains
See the cowl’d spectre skim the folded plains.
To the high Temple would my stranger go,
The mountain-brow commands the woods below:
In Jewry first this order found a name,
When madding Croisades set the world in flame;
When western climes, urged on by pope and priest
Pour’d forth their minions o’er the deluged East:
Luxurious knights, ill suited to defy
To mortal fight Turcestan chivalry.
Nor be the parsonage by the Muse forgot —
The partial bard admires his native spot;
Smit with its beauties, loved, as yet a child,
Unconscious why, its capes, grotesque and wild.
High on a mound th’ exalted gardens stand,
Beneath, deep valleys, scoop’d by Nature’s hand.
A Cobham here, exulting in his art,
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Table of Contents
117 ChaptersEvery chapter below is pre-indexed for oral narration and easy 1-click scheduling into your weekly Charlotte Mason lesson plan.
Chapter 1: Invitation To Selborne
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 1
Chapter 2: Selborne Hanger
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 2
Chapter 3: On The Rainbow
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 3
Chapter 4: A Harvest Scene
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 4
Chapter 5: On The Dark, Still, Dry, Warm Weather
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 5
Chapter 6: Advertisement
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 6
Chapter 7: Letter I
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 7
Chapter 8: Letter II
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 8
Chapter 9: Letter III
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 9
Chapter 10: Letter IV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 10
Chapter 11: Letter V
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 11
Chapter 12: Letter VI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 12
Chapter 13: Letter VII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 13
Chapter 14: Letter VIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 14
Chapter 15: Letter IX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 15
Chapter 16: Letter X
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 16
Chapter 17: Letter XI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 17
Chapter 18: Letter XII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 18
Chapter 19: Letter XIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 19
Chapter 20: Letter XIV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 20
Chapter 21: Letter XV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 21
Chapter 22: Letter XVI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 22
Chapter 23: Letter XVII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 23
Chapter 24: Letter XVIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 24
Chapter 25: Letter XIX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 25
Chapter 26: Letter XX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 26
Chapter 27: Letter XXI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 27
Chapter 28: Letter XXII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 28
Chapter 29: Letter XXIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 29
Chapter 30: Letter XXIV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 30
Chapter 31: The Naturalist’s Summer-evening Walk
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 31
Chapter 32: Letter XXV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 32
Chapter 33: Letter XXVI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 33
Chapter 34: Letter XXVII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 34
Chapter 35: Letter XXVIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 35
Chapter 36: Letter XXIX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 36
Chapter 37: Letter XXX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 37
Chapter 38: Letter XXXI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 38
Chapter 39: Letter XXXII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 39
Chapter 40: Letter XXXIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 40
Chapter 41: Letter XXXIV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 41
Chapter 42: Letter XXXV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 42
Chapter 43: Letter XXXVI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 43
Chapter 44: Letter XXXVII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 44
Chapter 45: Letter XXXVIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 45
Chapter 46: Letter XXXIX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 46
Chapter 47: Letter XL
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 47
Chapter 48: Letter XLI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 48
Chapter 49: Letter XLII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 49
Chapter 50: Letter XLIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 50
Chapter 51: Letter XLIV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 51
Chapter 52: Letter I
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 52
Chapter 53: Letter II
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 53
Chapter 54: Letter III
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 54
Chapter 55: Letter IV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 55
Chapter 56: Letter V
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 56
Chapter 57: Letter VI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 57
Chapter 58: Letter VII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 58
Chapter 59: Letter VIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 59
Chapter 60: Letter IX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 60
Chapter 61: Letter X
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 61
Chapter 62: Letter XI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 62
Chapter 63: Letter XII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 63
Chapter 64: Letter XIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 64
Chapter 65: Letter XIV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 65
Chapter 66: Letter XV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 66
Chapter 67: Letter XVI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 67
Chapter 68: Letter XVII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 68
Chapter 69: Letter XVIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 69
Chapter 70: Letter XIX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 70
Chapter 71: Letter XX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 71
Chapter 72: Letter XXI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 72
Chapter 73: Letter XXII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 73
Chapter 74: Letter XXIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 74
Chapter 75: Letter XXIV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 75
Chapter 76: Letter XXV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 76
Chapter 77: Letter XXVI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 77
Chapter 78: Letter XXVII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 78
Chapter 79: Letter XXVIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 79
Chapter 80: Letter XXIX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 80
Chapter 81: Letter XXX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 81
Chapter 82: Letter XXXI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 82
Chapter 83: Letter XXXII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 83
Chapter 84: Letter XXXIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 84
Chapter 85: Letter XXXIV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 85
Chapter 86: Letter XXXV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 86
Chapter 87: Letter XXXVI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 87
Chapter 88: Letter XXXVII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 88
Chapter 89: Letter XXXVIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 89
Chapter 90: Letter XXXIX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 90
Chapter 91: Letter XL
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 91
Chapter 92: Letter XLI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 92
Chapter 93: Letter XLII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 93
Chapter 94: Letter XLIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 94
Chapter 95: Letter XLIV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 95
Chapter 96: Letter XLV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 96
Chapter 97: Letter XLVI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 97
Chapter 98: Letter XLVII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 98
Chapter 99: Letter XLVIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 99
Chapter 100: Letter XLIX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 100
Chapter 101: Letter L
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 101
Chapter 102: Letter LI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 102
Chapter 103: Letter LII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 103
Chapter 104: Letter LIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 104
Chapter 105: Letter LIV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 105
Chapter 106: Letter LV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 106
Chapter 107: Letter LVI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 107
Chapter 108: Letter LVII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 108
Chapter 109: Letter LVIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 109
Chapter 110: Letter LIX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 110
Chapter 111: Letter LX
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 111
Chapter 112: Letter LXI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 112
Chapter 113: Letter LXII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 113
Chapter 114: Letter LXIII
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 114
Chapter 115: Letter LXIV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 115
Chapter 116: Letter LXV
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 116
Chapter 117: Letter LXVI
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White — Chapter 117
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