things to her he spoke more openly; he could and to his ardent mind no obstacles were too not bear, he said, the thought of spending seven discouraging. He received some instruction in years of his life in shining and folding up stock- the first rudiments of this language from a person ings; he wanted something to occupy his brain, and who then resided at Nottingham under a feigned he should be wretched if he continued longer at name, but was soon obliged to leave it, to elude this trade, or indeed in anything except one of the search of government, who were then seeking the learned professions. These frequent com- to secure him. Henry discovered him to be Mr plaints, after a year's application, or rather mis- Cormick, from a print affixed to a continuation application (as his brother says), at the loon, of Hume and Smollett, and published, with their convinced her that he had a mind destined for histories, by Cooke. He is, I believe, the same nobler pursuits. person who wrote a life of Burke. If he received To one so situated, and with nothing but his any other assistance it was very trifling; yet, in own talents and exertions to depend upon, the the course of ten months, he enabled himself to Law seemed to be the only practicable line. His read Horace with tolerable facility, and had made affectionate and excellent mother made every pos- some progress in Greek, which indeed he began sible effort to effect his wishes, his father being first. He used to exercise himself in declining very averse to the plan; and at length, after the Greek nouns and verbs as he was going to overcoming a variety of obstacles, he was fixed and from the office, so valuable was time become in the office of Messrs. Coldham and Enfield, at- to him. From this time he contracted a habit of torneys and town-clerks of Nottingham. As no employing his mind in study during his walks, premium could be given with him, he was engaged which he continued to the end of his life. to serve two years before he was articled: so that, though he entered this office when he was fifteen, he was not articled till the commencement of the year 1802.

He now became almost estranged from his fam. ily; even at his meals he would be reading, and his evenings were entirely devoted to intellectual improvement. He had a little room given him, On his thus entering the Law, it was recom- which was called his study; and here his milk mended to him by his employers, that he should supper was taken up to him; for, to avoid any endeavor to obtain some knowledge of Latin. He had now only the little time which an attorney's office, in very extensive practice, afforded; but great things may be done in "those hours of leisure which even the busiest may create,"

I woo'd thy heavenly influence! I would walk
A weary way when all my toils were done,
To lay myself at night in some lone wood,
And hear the sweet song of the nightingale.
Oh, those were times of happiness, and still
To memory doubly dear! for growing years
Had not then taught me man was made to mourn,
And a short hour of solitary pleasure,
Stolen from sleep, was ample recompense
For all the hateful bustles of the day.

My op'ning mind was ductile then, and plastic,
And soon the marks of care were worn away,
While I was sway'd by every novel impulse,
Yielding to all the fancies of the hour.
But it has now assumed its character;
Mark'd by strong lineaments, its haughty tone,
Like the firm oak, would sooner break than bend.
Yet still, Oh Contemplation! I do love

To indulge thy solemn musings; still the same
With thee alone I know to melt and weep,
In thee alone delighting. Why along
The dusky track of commerce should I toil,
When, with an easy competence content,
I can alone be happy? where, with thee,
I may enjoy the loveliness of Nature,
And loose the wings of Fancy!-Thus alone
Can I partake of happiness on earth;
And to be happy here is man's chief end,
For to be happy he must needs be good.

1 Turner's Preface to the History of the Anglo-Saxons,

loss of time, he refused to sup with his family, though earnestly entreated so to do, as his mother already began to dread the effects of this severe and unremitting application. The Law was his first pursuit, to which his papers show he had applied himself with such industry, as to make it wonderful that he could have found time, busied as his days were, for anything else. Greek and Latin were the next objects: at the same time he made himself a tolerable Italian scholar, and acquired some knowledge both of the Spanish and Portuguese. His medical friends say that the knowledge he had obtained of chemistry was very respectable. Astronomy and electricity were among his studies. Some attention he paid to drawing, in which it is probable he would have excelled. He was passionately fond of music, and could play very pleasingly by ear on the piano-forte, composing the bass to the air he was playing; but this propensity he checked, lest it might interfere with more important objects. He had a turn for mechanics; and all the fittings-up of his study were the work of his own hands.

At a very early age, indeed soon after he was taken from school, Henry was ambitious of being admitted a member of a Literary Society then existing in Nottingham, but was objected to on account of his youth. After repeated attempts and re. peated failures, he succeeded in his wish, through the exertions of some of his friends, and was elected. There were six Professors in this Society;

and, upon the first vacancy, he was appointed to stimulants to the heart, instead of "feeding it the chair of Literature. It may well appear with food convenient for it;" and the effect of strange that a society, in so large a town as Not- such stimulants is to dwarf the human mind, as tingham, instituted for the purpose of acquiring lap-dogs are said to be stopt in their growth by and diffusing knowledge, and respectable enough being dosed with gin. Thus forced, it becomes to be provided with a good philosophical ap- like the sapling which shoots up when it should paratus, should have chosen a boy, in the fifteenth be striking its roots far and deep, and which thereyear of his age, to deliver lectures to them upon fore never attains to more than a sapling's size. general literature. The first subject upon which To Henry, however, the opportunity of distin he held forth was Genius. Having taken a day to guishing himself, even in the Juvenile Library, consider the subject, he spoke upon it extempore, was useful; if he had acted with a man's foresight, and harangued for two hours and three quarters: he could not have done more wisely than by aimyet, instead of being wearied, his hearers passed ing at every distinction within his little sphere. a unanimous resolution, "That the most sincere At the age of fifteen, he gained a silver medal for thanks be given to the Professor for his most in- a translation from Horace; and the following year structive and entertaining lecture; at the same a pair of twelve-inch globes, for an imaginary time assuring him that the Society never had the Tour from London to Edinburgh. He determined pleasure of hearing a better lecture delivered from upon trying for this prize one evening when at tea that chair which he so much honored:" and with his family, and at supper he read to them his they then elected him one of their committee. performance, to which seven pages were granted There are certain courts at Nottingham, in which in the magazine, though they had limited the it is necessary for an attorney to plead; and he allowance of room to three. Shortly afterwards wished to qualify himself for a speaker as well as he won several books for exercises on different a sound lawyer. subjects. Such honors were of great importance With the profession in which he was placed he to him; they were testimonies of his ability, which was well pleased, and suffered no pursuit, nu- could not be suspected of partiality, and they merous as his pursuits were, to interfere in the prepared his father to regard with less reluctance slightest degree with its duties. Yet he soon that change in his views and wishes which afterbegan to have higher aspirations, and to cast a wards took place. It appears by a letter written wistful eye toward the Universities, with little soon after he had completed his fifteenth year, hope of ever attaining their important advantages, that many of his pieces in prose and verse, under yet probably not without some, however faint. feigned signatures, had gained admission in the There was at this time a magazine in publication, various magazines of the day, more particularly called the Monthly Preceptor, which proposed in the Monthly Magazine and the Monthly Visitor: prizethemes for boys and girls to write upon; and "In prosaic composition," he says, "I never had which was encouraged by many schoolmasters, one article refused: in poetic, many.”—“I am some of whom, for their own credit, and that of conscious," he observes, at this time, to his brothe important institutions in which they were ther, "that if I chose I could produce poems placed, ought to have known better than to en- infinitely superior to any you have yet seen of courage it. But in schools, and in all practical mine; but I am so indolent, and at the same time systems of education, emulation is made the main- so much engaged, that I cannot give the time and spring, as if there were not enough of the leaven attention necessary for the formation of correct of disquietude in our natures, without inocu- and accurate pieces." Less time and attention lating it with this dilutement-this vaccine virus are necessary for correcting prose, and this may of envy. True it is, that we need encourage-be one reason why, contrary to the usual process, ment in youth; that though our vices spring up a greater prematurity is discernable in his prose and thrive in shade and darkness, like poisonous than in his metrical compositions. "The reason," fungi, our better powers require light and air; he says, "of the number of erasures and correcand that praise is the sunshine, without which tions in my letter is, that it contains a rough trangenins will wither, fade, and die; or rather in script of the state of my mind, without my having search of which, like a plant that is debarred from made any sketch on another paper. When I sit it, will push forth in contortions and deformity. down to write, ideas crowd into my mind too fast But such practices as that of writing for public for utterance upon paper. Some of them I think prizes, of publicly declaiming, ad of enacting too precious to be lost, and for fear their impresplays before the neighboring gentry, teach boys sion should be effaced, I write as rapidly as pos to look for applause instead of being satisfied with sible. This accounts for my bad writing." approbation, and foster in them that vanity which He now became a correspondent in the Monthly needs no such cherishing. This is administering Mirror, a magazine which first set the example of

typographical neatness in periodical publications, There is among his papers the draught of a letter which has given the world a good series of por-addressed to her upon the subject, but I believe traits, and which deserves praise also on other it was never sent. He was then recommended to accounts, having among its contributors some apply to the Duchess of Devonshire. Poor Henry persons of extensive erudition and acknowledged felt a fit of repugnance at courting patronage in talents. Magazines are of great service to those this way, but he felt that it was of consequence in who are learning to write; they are fishing-boats, his little world, and submitted; and the manuwhich the Buccaneers of Literature do not con- script was left, with a letter, at Devonshire House, descend to sink, burn, and destroy: young poets as it had been with the Countess of Derby. Some may safely try their strength in them; and that time elapsed, and no answer arrived from her they should try their strength before the public, Grace; and, as she was known to be pestered with without danger of any shame from failure, is such applications, apprehensions began to be highly desirable. Henry's rapid improvement entertained for the safety of the papers. His was now as remarkable as his unwearied industry. brother Neville (who was now settled in London) The pieces which had been rewarded in the Ju-called several times; of course he never obtained venile Preceptor might have been rivalled by an interview: the case at last became desperate, many boys; but what he produced a year after- and he went with a determination not to quit the wards, few men could equal. Those which ap- house till he had obtained them. After waiting peared in the Monthly Mirror attracted some four hours in the servants' hall, his perseverance notice, and introduced him to the acquaintance conquered their idle insolence, and he got posof Mr. Capel Lofft, and of Mr. Hill, the proprietor session of the manuscript. And here he, as well of the work, a gentleman who was himself a lover as his brother, sick of "dancing attendance” of English literature, and who possessed one of upon the great, would have relinquished all the most copious collections of English poetry in thoughts of the dedication, but they were urged existence. Their encouragement induced him, to make one more trial:—a letter to her Grace about the close of the year 1802, to prepare a was procured, with which Neville obtained aulittle volume of poems for the press. It was his dience, wisely leaving the manuscript at home: hope that this publication might either, by the and the Duchess, with her usual good-nature, success of its sale, or the notice which it might gave permission that the volume should be dedi. excite, enable him to prosecute his studies at col-cated to her. Accordingly her name appeared lege, and fit himself for holy orders. For, though in the title-page, and a copy was transmitted to so far was he from feeling any dislike to his own profession, that he was even attached to it, and had indulged a hope that one day or other he should make his way to the Bar, a deafness, to which he had always been subject, and which appeared to grow progressively worse, threatened to preclude all possibility of advancement; and his opinions, which had at one time inclined to Henry sent his little volume to each of the then infidelity, had now taken a strong devotional bias. existing Reviews, and accompanied it with a letHenry was earnestly advised to obtain, if pos- ter, wherein he stated what his disadvantages had sible, some patroness for his book, whose rank in been, and what were the hopes which he proposed life, and notoriety in the literary world, might to himself from the publication: requesting from afford it some protection. The days of such dedi- them that indulgence of which his productions cations are happily well-nigh at an end; but this did not stand in need, and which it might have was of importance to him, as giving his little been thought, under such circumstances, would volume consequence in the eyes of his friends not have been withheld from works of less promand townsmen. The Countess of Derby was first ise. It may be well conceived with what anxiety applied to, and the manuscript submitted to he looked for their opinions, and with what feelher perusal. She returned it with a refusal, upon ings he read the following article in the Monthly the ground that it was an invariable rule with Review for February, 1804. her never to accept a compliment of the kind; but this refusal was couched in language as kind as it was complimentary, and he felt more pleasure at the kindness which it expressed, than disappointment at the failure of his application: a 21. note was inclosed as her subscription to the work. The margravine of Anspach was also thought of

her in due form, and in its due morocco livery,— of which no notice was ever taken. Involved as she was in an endless round of miserable follies, it is probable that she never opened the book, otherwise her heart was good enough to have felt a pleasure in encouraging the author. Oh, what a lesson would the history of that heart hold out!

Monthly Review, February, 1804. "The circumstances under which this little volume is offered to the public, must, in some measure, disarm criticism. We have been informed that Mr. White has scarcely attained his eighteenth year, has hitherto exerted himself in

the pursuit of knowledge under the discouragements of penury and misfortune, and now hopes, by this early authorship, to obtain some assistance in the prosecution of his studies at Cambridge. He appears, indeed, to be one of those young men of talents and application who merit encouragement; and it would be gratifying to us to hear that this publication had obtained for him a respectable patron; for we fear that the mere profit arising from the sale cannot be, in any measure, adequate to his exigencies as a student at the university. A subscription, with a statement of the particulars of the author's case, might have been calculated to have answered his purpose; but, as a book which is to win its way' on the sole ground of its own merit, this poem cannot be contemplated with any sanguine expectation. The author is very anxious, however, that critics should find in it something to commend, and he shall not be disappointed: we commend his exertions and his laudable endeavors to excel; but we cannot compliment him with having learned the difficult art of writing good poetry.

"Such lines as these will sufficiently prove our assertion:

Here would I run, a visionary Boy,

When the hoarse thunder shook the vaulted Sky,
And, fancy-led, beheld the Almighty's form
Sternly careering in the eddying storm.

'If Mr. White should be instructed by Almamater, he will, doubtless, produce better sense and better rhymes."

And o'er the wintry desert drear

To waft thy waste perfume!
Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now,
And I will bind thee round my brow;

And as I twine the mournful wreath,
I'll weave a melancholy song:
And sweet the strain shall be and long,
The melody of death.

Come, funeral flow'r! who lovest to dwell
With the pale corse in lonely tomb,
And throw across the desert gloom

A sweet decaying smell.
Come, press my lips, and lie with me
Beneath the lowly Alder-tree,

And we will sleep a pleasant sleep,
And not a care shall dare intrude,
To break the marble solitude,

So peaceful and so deep.

And hark! the wind-god, as he flies,
Moans hollow in the forest trees,
And sailing on the gusty breeze,
Mysterious music dies.

Sweet flower! that requiem wild is mine,
It warns me to the lonely shrine,

The cold turf-altar of the dead;
My grave shall be in yon lone spot,
Where as I lie, by all forgot,

A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed.

TO THE MORNING.

WRITTEN DURING ILLNESS.

Beams of the day-break faint! I hail
Your dubious hues, as on the robe
Of Night, which wraps the slumbering globe,
I mark your traces pale.

Tired with the taper's sickly light,
And with the wearying, number'd night,
I hail the streaks of morn divine:
And lo! they break between the dewy wreaths
That round my rural casement twine:
The fresh gale o'er the green lawn breathes;
It fans my feverish brow,—it calms the mental strife,
And cheerily re-illumes the lambent flame of life.

I know not who was the writer of this precious article. It is certain that Henry could have no personal enemy: his volume fell into the hands of some dull man, who took it up in an hour of ill-humor, turned over the leaves to look for faults, and finding that Boy and Sky were not orthodox rhymes, according to his wise canons of criticism, sat down to blast the hopes of a boy, who had confessed to him all his hopes and all his difficulties, and thrown himself upon his mercy. With such a letter before him (by mere accident I saw that which had been sent to the Critical Review), even though the poems had been bad, a good man would not have said so: he would have avoided censure, if he had found it impossible to bestow praise. But that the reader may perceive the wicked injustice, as well as the cruelty of this I sit reviewal, a few specimens of the volume, thus contemptuously condemned because Boy and Sky are used as rhymes in it, shall be inserted in this place.

TO THE HERB ROSEMARY.' Sweet-scented flower! who art wont to bloom On January's front severe,

1 The Rosemary buds in January. It is the flower commonly put in the coffins of the dead.

The lark has her gay song begun,

She leaves her grassy nest,
And soars till the unrisen sun

Gleams on her speckled breast.
Now let me leave my restless bed,
And o'er the spangled uplands tread;

Now through the custom'd wood-walk wend;
By many a green lane lies my way,

Where high o'erhead the wild briers bend, me down, and mark the glorious dawn of day. Till on the mountain's summit grey,

Oh, Heav'n! the soft refreshing gale

It breathes into my breast!
My sunk eye gleams; my cheek, so pale,
Is with new colors drest.
Blithe Health! thou soul of life and ease,
Come thou too on the balmy breeze,
Invigorate my frame:

I'll join with thee the buskin'd chace,
With thee the distant clime will trace,

Beyond those clouds of flame.

Above, below, what charms unfold

In all the varied view! Before me all is burnish'd gold,

Behind the twilight's hue.

The mists which on old Night await, Far to the west they hold their state, They shun the clear blue face of Morn;

Along the fine cerulean sky,

The fleecy clouds successive fly,

truly sympathize, and which shall readily excuse, with us, some expressions of irritation; but Mr. White must receive our most serious declaration, that we did judge of the book by the book it. self'; excepting only, that, from his former letter, we were desirous of mitigating the pain of that decision which our public duty required us to

While bright prismatic beams their shadowy folds adorn. pronounce. We spoke with the utmost sincerity

And hark! the Thatcher has begun

His whistle on the eaves,

And oft the Hedger's bill is heard

Among the rustling leaves.

The slow team creaks upon the road,
The noisy whip resounds,

The driver's voice, his carol blithe,
The mower's stroke, his whetting scythe,
Mix with the morning's sounds.

Who would not rather take his seat
Beneath these clumps of trees,
The early dawn of day to greet,

And catch the healthy breeze,
Than on the silken couch of Sloth
Luxurious to lie?

Who would not from life's dreary waste
Snatch, when he could, with eager haste,
An interval of joy?

To him who simply thus recounts
The morning's pleasures o'er,

Fate dooms, ere long, the scene must close,
To ope on him no more:

Yet, Morning! unrepining still

He'll greet thy beams awhile;

And surely thou, when o'er his grave
Solemn the whispering willows wave,
Wilt sweetly on him smile;

And the pale glow-worm's pensive light
Will guide his ghostly walks in the drear moonless night.

when we stated our wishes for patronage to an unfriended man of talents, for talents Mr. White certainly possesses, and we repeat those wishes with equal cordiality. Let him still trust that, like Mr. Gifford (see preface to his translation of Juvenal), some Mr. Cookesley may yet appear to foster a capacity which endeavors to escape from its present confined sphere of action; and let the opulent inhabitants of Nottingham reflect, that some portion of that wealth which they have worthily acquired by the habits of industry, will be laudably applied in assisting the efforts of

mind."

Henry was not aware that reviewers are infal lible. His letter seems to have been answered by a different writer; the answer has none of the commonplace and vulgar insolence of the criticism: but to have made any concession would have been admitting that a review can do wrong, and thus violating the fundamental principle of its constitution.

The poems which had been thus condemned, appeared to me to discover strong marks of genius. I had shown them to two of my friends, than whom no persons living better understand what poetry is, nor have given better proofs of An author is proof against reviewing, when, was indignant at the injustice of this pretended it; and their opinion coincided with my own. I like myself, he has been reviewed some seventy criticism, and having accidentally seen the letter times; but the opinion of a reviewer, upon his which he had written to the reviewers, underfirst publication, has more effect, both upon his stood the whole cruelty of their injustice. In feelings and his success, than it ought to have, or consequence of this I wrote to Henry, to encourwould have, if the mystery of the ungentle craft age him; told him, that though I was well aware were more generally understood. Henry wrote how imprudent it was in young poets to publish to the editor to complain of the cruelty with which their productions, his circumstances seemed to he had been treated. This remonstrance produced render that expedient, from which it would otherthe following answer in the next number:

Monthly Review, March, 1804.

ADDRESS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

wise be right to dissuade him; advised him therefore, if he had no better prospects, to print a larger volume by subscription, and offered to do what little was in my power to serve him in the undertaking. To this he replied in the following letter:

"In the course of our long critical labors, we have necessarily been forced to encounter the resentment, or withstand the lamentations, of many "I dare not say all I feel respecting your opin disappointed authors; but we have seldom, if ion of my little volume. The extreme acrimony ever, been more affected than by a letter from with which the Monthly Review (of all others the Mr. White, of Nottingham, complaining of the most important) treated me, threw me into a tendency of our strictures on his poem of Clifton state of stupefaction; I regarded all that had Grove, in our last number. His expostulations passed as a dream, and I thought I had been deare written with a warmth of feeling in which we luding myself into an idea of possessing poetic