The life and remains of Henry Kirke White ...

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Preface to Clifton Grove

Lines, by Professor Smyth, on a Monument erected by Francis Boott, Esq. in All Saint's Church, Cambridge, to the Memory of H. K. White.

Lines, by Lord Byron.

To my Lyre ; an Ode.

Clifton Grove.

Gondoline ; a Ballad.

On a Survey of the Heavens, before Day-break.

Lines, spoken by a Lover at the Grave of his Mistress.

My Study.

To an early Primrose.

Sonnets, 1. To the Trent.

— 2. * Give me a Cottage on some Cambrian wild.'

— 3. Supposed to have been addressed by a Female Lunatic to a Lady.

— 4. In the Character of Dermody.

— 5. The Winter Traveller.

— 6. By Capel Lofft, Esq.

• — 7. Recantatory, in reply.

— 8. On hearing an iEolian Harp.

— 9. « What art thou, Mighty One?

A Ballad. 'Behush'd,behush'd, ye bitter winds.'

The Lullaby of a Female Convict to ber child.

ToH. Fuseli, Esq. R.A.

To the Earl of Carlisle.

Description of a Summer's Eve.

To Contemplation.

To the Genius of Romance ; a Fragment.

The Savoyard's Return.

Lines. ' Go to the raging sea,

and say, " Be still !" ' Written in the Prospect of

Death.

Song. ' Come, Anna, Come.' Verses.

Epigram on R. Bloomfield.

Ode to Midnight.

— To Thought. Written at Midnight.

Genius; an Ode.

Fragment. — To the Moon.

— ' Loud rage the winds without.'

— ' Oh, thou most fatal of Pandora's train.'

Sonnets. To Capel Lofft, Esq.

— To the Moon.

— Written at the Grave of a Friend.

— To Misfortune.

— ' As thusoppress'dwithmany a heavv care.'

— To April.

— ' Ye unseen spirits.'

— To a Taper.

— To my Mother.

— ' Yes, 'twill be over soon.' • — To Consumption.

— " Thy judgments, Lord, are just'

To a Friend in Distress, who when Henry reasoned with him calmly, asked, If he did not feel for him ?

Christmas Day.

Nelsoni Mors.

Hymn. 'Awake sweet harp of Judah, wake.

— for Family Worship.

The Star of Bethlehem

CONTENTS.

Hymn. ' Lord, my God, in mercy turn.'

Melody. ' Yes, once mote that dying strain/

Song, by Waller, with an additional Stanza.

' I am pleased, and yet I'm sad.'

Solitude*

' If far from me the Fates remove.'

' Fanny, upon thy breast I may not lie.'

' Saw'st thou that light?'

' The pious man in this bad world.'

' Lo ! on the eastern summit.'

' There was a little bird upon that pile.'

' O pale art thou, my lamp.'

' O give me music'

* Ah ! who can say, however

fair his view.' ' And must thou go V ' When 1 sit musing on the che-

quer'd past.' ' When high romance, o'er

every wood and stream.' ■ Hush'd is the lyre.'

* Once more, and yet once more.'

Time.

Childhood.

Fragment of an Eccentric

Drama.

To a Friend.

On the Poems of Warton.

To the Muse.

To Love.

The Wandering Boy.

Fragment. ' The western gale.' Ode, written on Whit-Monday.

Canzonet.

Commencement of a Poem on

Despair.

To the Wind ; a Fragment.

The Eve of Death.

Thanatos.

Athanatos.

On Music.

Ode to the Harvest Moon.

* Softly, softly blow, ye breezes.

Shipwreck'd Solitary's Song.

Sonnet.

On being confined to School one Morning in Spring; written at the Age of Thirteen.

Extract from an Address to Contemplation.

To the Rosemary.

To the Morning.

My own Character.

Ode on Disappointment.

Lines, on Recovery from Sickness.

The Christiad.

Lines and Note, by Lord Byron.

— written in the Homer of Mr.

H. K. White.

To the Memory of H. K. White.

Stanzas, at the grave of H. K.

White, by a Lady.

Ode on the late H. K. White.

Verses, by Josiah Conder.

Sonnet, by Arthur Owen.

— in Memory of H. K. White.

Reflections on reading the Life

of the late H. K. White, by

William Holloway.

Lines, on reading the Poem on

Solitude, by Josiah Conder.

To the Memory of H. K. White,

by the Rev. W. B. Collyer.

On the death of H. K. White,

by T. Park.

Letters.

Remarks on the English Poets.

— Sternhold and Hopkins.

Remarks on the English Poets.

— Warton.

Cursory Remarks on Tragedy.

Melancholy Hours, I. to XII.

Reflections oh Prayer.

MEMOIRS

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

There are few persons whose name is so hailed by the young-, and whose character has produced a greater effect upon society, than that of He^ry Kirke White.

There is a genius of the highest order in his poetical productions, and an erudite simplicity in his prose ; and both are so recommended by sincerity, and consecrated by piety, that no one can read them without being awed by the subject, and improved by the sentiments.

What renders the piety and religious sentiments of this accomplished youth more conspicuous and remarkable, is, that it is well known he was once inclined to gaiety, and a victim of infidelity. He was fond of the stage, and took a part in private theatricals ; associated with a circle of ingenious, but free-thinking and free-acting young men : but, to the surprise of his former acquaintances, he became perfectly orthodox in his principles, and devout in his practice. This gives us ground to believe that his opinions are sincere, that they were adopted after mature examination : and his life proves that his piety was unfeigned ; for he

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acted throughout life according to the new principles which he had adopted.

Henry Kirke White was born at Nottingham, March 21 , 1785. This celebrated poet, like many other men of genius, was of humble origin. His father was a butcher at Nottingham, and he was designed by him to carry the basket, loaded with meat, to his customers. But Henry's spirit was too aspiring for this ignoble employment; and this, united with his mother's ambition, procured him a classical education. Mr. Blanchard, master of the Classical Academy, Nottingham, has been accused of not discerning his talents. But in a school consisting of upwards of a hundred boys, which we know he then conducted, it was perhaps impossible to discover the peculiar genius of every pupil. The usual routine of tasks were of course required of Henry, and it is very possible that the dry grammatical exercises which he had to perform, were not very agreeable to him.

The earliest instruction has often produced a good and salutary impression upon the minds of children, which has been felt even to maturer years. This was the benefit which Henry derived, at the age of four years, from Mrs. Garrington, his school-mistress. Henry, in his poem on Childhood, makes mention of her prudence and kindness With affectionate veneration.

There was a teacher at Mr. Blanchard's, who, with more spite than penetration, pronounced an ill-natured opinion of Henry, as a stupid, obstinate boy; but the lampoons which Henry immediately wrote upon him and the other teachers, were pointed with such wit and humour, that they completely proved the falsehood of the calumny.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE. Q

The irksome confinement of school, to a boy whose x taste for the sublime and beautiful led him to meet the approach of day, may be easily conceived; and his feelings are expressively pictured in his little poem ' On being confined to School/ The clear meanderings of the majestic Trent, the expansive and flowery meadows which form its banks, the hanging groves of Clifton which overshadow the stream, and the woods of Cotgrave, which crown its abrupt and sloping hills, all form scenes where his muse delighted to wander; and amidst them, the writer of these pages has often met Henry.

Here, with the meditations of a hermit, he often wandered at early morn, at sunny noon, or when the evening shades arose. And I can never retrace those well-known scenes without fancying I hear the whisper of his friendly spirit :

Far from the scene of gaiety and noise, Far, far from turbulent and empty joys, He Med him to the thick o'er-arching shade, And there on mossy carpet listless laid.

Henry was only six years old when he first was sent to Mr. Blanchard's Academy, Nottingham. Here he was instructed in the rudiments of writing, arithmetic, and French. He remained in this classical establishment till he was eleven years old ; at which age, it is said, he wrote a theme for every boy in his class, consisting of fourteen. The master commended every one of them, but upon Henry's he bestowed a very high encomium.

Some dispute with Mr. Blanchard, or a mother's fondness, or a principle of economy, to save expense, removed Henry from this academy, to be a domestic

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pupil of Mr. Shipley, the writing-master of Mrs. White's seminary for young ladies. As might be expected, under the particular and kind attention of this worthy man, Henry's talents developed themselves. It has been often observed, that the best mode of study is to let every one pursue the track of knowledge which his own genius prefers. Henry, now left to the uninterrupted pursuit of his favourite subjects at his own hours, soon found sufficient employment for all his time in reading works on almost every subject, and exercising his talents on topics which his fancy preferred. Mr. Shipley could not but soon appreciate the superior abilities of a youth of such application ; and by every attention, assisted his progress in the Latin language. Having arrived at the age of fourteen, Henry was put to the stocking-loom, for the purpose of learning the nature of the hosiery business, the staple trade of the town, for which his friends intended him. But his mounting spirit found a difficulty in lowering itself to this degrading employment. He seems to have complained of the degradation in the lines commencing,

• Thee do I own the prompter of my joys/ Dissatisfied with an occupation merely manual, and desirous of an employment, as he said, ' to occupy his brains,' his mother articled him to Messrs. Coldham and Enfield, attorneys, and town-clerks of Nottingham. Yet in the midst of the pressing engagements of an attorney's office, he contrived to devote a portion of his time to the acquisition of considerable knowledge in the Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian languages; in astronomy and music; and learned to play the piano-forte.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE. H

At this early age he was admitted a member of a literary society in Nottingham, and distinguished him* self one evening at their meeting, by lecturing extempore a full hour on genius : upon which the members unanimously elected him their professor.

In a letter to his brother Neville, we find an instance of Henry's extempore powers in the art of poetry. A friend had doubted these powers, upon which Henry thus addressed him :

' Yet ah! thy arrows are too keen, too sure,' &c.

At the age of fifteen, he gained the prize of a silver medal, offered by the editors of the Monthly Preceptor, for the best translation of a passage in Horace : and at sixteen, they voted him a pair of twelve-inch globes for an imaginary Tour from London to Edinburgh. These literary distinctions introduced him to Capel Lofft, Esq. and Mr. Hill, who encouraged him, in 1802, to publish his Clifton Grove, and other poems.

His advancement at the bar, to which he had aspired, seemed prohibited by a natural deafness, which appeared immoveable. He now therefore turned his thoughts and wishes to the banks of the Cam, and hoped that his little work might, by its sale, raise him a sum of money to assist him to pass through the University. But these hopes were all blasted by the malignant criticisms of the Monthly Review. Mr. Southey, with a generous hand, staunched the wound made by their barbed arrows, and encouraged him to venture a second edition, and offered his assistance in the publication.

While Henry was groping his way to knowledge, and forming his plans to reach the University, he was introduced to the Rev. Mr. Dashwood, curate of St.

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Mary's, Nottingham, who much encouraged him, and made him some presents.

About this time, his religious sentiments underwent a great revolution. He became a Christian from conviction, and maintained the faith which once he had opposed.

The method which he adopted, of translations and re-translations back into the original of Cicero and Caesar, proved admirably useful in bringing him in a short time into the habit of easy and elegant Latin composition, by which he acquired great credit at the University.

Henry's hopes of going to Cambridge became now very faint, and he entertained the idea of relinquishing his studies. But a recommendation of him having been drawn up and presented to the Elland Society, formed for the assistance of deserving students through the University, he was induced to persevere. This Society examined him with scrupulous severity, and pronounced their high esteem of his abilities; but hesitated in accepting him, on account of some supposed natural defect in his utterance.

He was, however, introduced to Mr. Robinson of Leicester, and, by Mr. Dashwood, to Mr. Simeon of Cambridge ; and through these gentlemen, Mr. Wilberforce also took him under his patronage.

Henry therefore now renewed his literary pursuits, and after about six months of interrupted application, entered, according to his earnest wish, the University of Cambridge. Here, by the elegance of his Latin compositions, he soon gained honour and reputation ; and had the satisfaction, by the end of the year, to gain sufficient prizes to enable him to disburthenhis mind of the load of gratitude which oppressed it, and to decline any farther pecuniary aid from his patrons.

For the purpose, however, of making himself more fit to compete with the candidates for University honours, he retired for a year to Winteringham, and put himself under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Grainger, the curate. Upon returning to Cambridge, Henry was much patronized by his tutors, and sat for the University prize, but was persuaded to decline the contest. His abilities were much talked of in his own circle ; his college tempted his ambitious mind with promises of support, and with hopes of honours, and offered him a tutor during the vacation. The ambition of particular colleges to reflect honour on their own establishments, sometimes excites the members to sacrifices of time and health, which lead them to a literary suicide. Henry could not resist the tempting offers of his college. He read and studied, and took strong medicines: but it had been more kindness to have transplanted this overthriving plant into a quiet and open soil for a time, than thus to have forced it, in the hot-house of proffered honours, to grow beyond its strength till it was exhausted.

Thus patronized and celebrated, and spurred on by the desire of approving himself to his friends, and justifying their hopes and wishes, he felt himself tied down to his studies with bands which he could not break, and resisted all the importunities of his friends to leave the University to visit them. His mother was particularly urgent with him to quit his college for the purpose of coming to Nottingham, to receive the benefit of his native air, and maternal nursing ; but no arguments could prevail. He had already been to London, where he had spent a week, and he would not absent himself

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again. His mind had been much excited by the various novelties of the metropolis, and the literary and religious disputes in which he had been involved; so that, instead of that calm repose which the state of his health and spirits required, he had been thrown into a sea of agitation, and returned to Cambridge almost in a fever. A cold he caught on the road accelerated its advance; and it made such rapid progress over his frame, that in a few days he was delirious. Messrs. Campbell and Leeson sat up with him some nights, and contributed to calm his troubled spirit, and allay the fears which depressed his mind. What seemed principally to distress him was, the inattention he had lately paid to his religious concerns, while absorbed in classical pursuits, and carried forward by literary ambition. The promises of the gospel, however, and the readiness of our Almighty Father to receive his children who seek him with their whole heart through his beloved Son, brought consolation to his mind, and gave him peace. He expressed his hopes and his satisfaction to his friends, and departed without a struggle ; so that those who waited his last moments, saw his eyes closed, and his hands clasped as in devotion, and could scarcely distinguish the last sigh which preceded the departure of his spirit to the world of light and life immortal. He died the 19th of October, 1806.

His early death, in the attainment of celebrity beyond his years, should act as a caution to other youths not to indulge an ambitious spirit at the expense of health and life; but to use moderation, even in the laudable pursuit of language and science, and to believe that perseverance, with health, will, in the end, better secure the objects which they have in view.

The fame of Henry was high in his own college : and yet scarcely was he heard of out of it till his death, when his writings rendered him so celebrated. The eulogies of the University of Cambridge and the unequalled extent of his abilities, which his biographers have panegyrized, were smiled at as a romantic tale by almost all the Cambridge men of his time.

The chief excellencies of H. K.White were not the high honours which his classical or mathematical knowledge acquired him, nor the superiority of his acquisitions in language and science, but his true piety, his persevering labours, and his exalted poetical genius? displayed at so early a period of life. His unexpected and lamented death also, at the age of twenty-one, with the bright prospect of fame and honours glittering before him, has given an interest to his character. All these circumstances, combined, have drawn forth an attention to his writings, and given them an effect on the manners and principles of the rising generation ; and they have produced more good than his improved abilities might have achieved, had he been spared to the age of threescore years and ten.

Henry felt the force of truth, and obeyed her dictates. Henry found the cordials of divine truth supporting him in his death, and now reaps her glorious reward in that world where knowledge opens to his untired eye its boundless stores, and satisfies his holy ambition with her unfading and eternal honours. May these be the high glories to which all students may direct their best and their most ardent expectations!

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