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MEMOIR OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

Thine, HENRY, is a deathless name on earth,
Thine amaranthine wreaths, new pluck'd in Heaven!
By what aspiring child of mortal birth

Could more be ask'd, to whom might more be given?
TOWNSEND.

It has been said that the contrasts of light and shade are as necessary to biography as to painting, and that the character which is radiant with genius and virtue requires to be relieved by more common and opposite qualities. Though this may be true as a principle, there are many exceptions; and the life of HENRY KIRKE WHITE, whose merits were unalloyed by a single vice, is one of the most memorable. The history of his short and melancholy career, by Mr. Southey, is extremely popular; and when it is remembered that the author is one of the most distinguished of living writers, that as a biographer he is almost unrivalled, and that he had access to all the materials which exist, it would be as vain to expect that the present Memoir will contain any new facts, as it would be absurd to hope that it will be more worthy of attention on other grounds

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