MEMOIR. HENRY KIRKE WHITE, whose splendid talents and untimely fate have excited wonder and regret, was born at Nottingham, on the 21st of March, 1785. His father was a butcher, and his son was destined by him to follow the same trade. Henry's aptitude for learning was very early apparent; it was difficult even then to persuade him to lay by his book for his meals; and when he was about seven years old he used to steal into the kitchen, to teach the servant to read and write; but with the modesty inseparable from merit, he carefully concealed this good deed until, by accident, his occupation was discovered. At this time, one whole day in the week and his leisure hours on the others were devoted to the pursuit of his father's business, and the young poet, who was afterwards the pride and hope of the University of Cambridge, might be seen traversing the streets of Nottingham bearing a butcher's basket. All the school education he received amounted only to the acquirement of reading and writing his mother tongue, with some instruction in arithmetic and French; but he thirsted for more ample supplies; and, already an ardent admirer of the beauties of nature, he revolted both from the occupations of a butcher and of a hosier, to which latter business he was placed when fourteen years of age. His own poems, "On being confined to School one pleasant morning in Spring," and his "Address to Contemplation," written about this time, exemplify his state of mind. To his mother he spoke his feelings openly. He said he could not bear to spend his days in stocking-spinning and folding; that he wanted something to occupy his brain; and he should be wretched if he continued any longer at this trade, or indeed any thing except one of the learned professions. At length he obtained his wish, and he was placed in the office of Messrs. Coldham and Enfield, attorneys and town-clerks of Nottingham; but, as no premium could be given, the terms fixed on were, that he should serve two years before he was articled. He entered on this new pursuit with pleasure, and became fond of his profession; but the ambition which, until it became modified by religious feelings, was the leading characteristic of his mind, led him, before many years had passed, to aim at higher things. He was fifteen years old when he entered the office of Messrs. Coldham and Enfield; he died six years afterwards; yet the acquirements he gained and the works he achieved in that short space were such as have not frequently been equalled. On entering the profession of the law, he was advised to make himself master of the Latin language. With very trifling assistance he enabled himself to read Horace with facility, and had made some progress in Greek, in ten months. In his walks to and from the office, he used to exercise himself in declining the Greek nouns and verbs, and contracted a habit he ever afterwards practised, of studying in his walks. Every moment that could be snatched from the day, and but too many from the night, were now employed by the enthusiastic student in the pursuit of multifarious knowledge. Professional lore took the first place in his studies; Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, chemistry, drawing, music, and mechanics, each in turn occupied his unwearied mind. He now began a correspondence with several magazines, and by the success he met with was encouraged to attempt the publication of a small collection of poems: this was about the close of the year 1802. His chief object was to obtain a fund which might enable him to go to college, and eventually enter the church; a step which had now become the first wish, the eager desire of his heart. He was not averse to his profession; on the contrary, he took pleasure in it, and had cherished a hope that some day he might win his way to the bar; but a distressing deafness, which increased upon him, greatly impeded the practice of the law, and the religious fervour which had succeeded the deistical opinions he had once entertained, caused him to look to the church as the great object towards which all his exertions should now be directed. The reception his Poems met with was not very encouraging, and an unfavourable notice of them in the Monthly Review greatly distressed him. The unfairness of this article induced Southey, with all the generosity of true genius, to address a letter to Kirke White, encouraging him to persevere. A correspondence ensued, and when the Poet sunk into an untimely grave, it was Southey's friendly hand which gathered his scattered works together, and gave them to the world. The change in Henry's sentiments from deism to Christianity was accelerated by the conduct of his friend Mr. Almond, who pointedly shunned his society, fearing his ridicule of the serious views of religion which he himself entertained. Henry sought an explanation, and expressed to him the doubts which he felt (doubts which were happily of no long continuance), and the dreadful effect they had upon his mind. Before this period, as he himself acknowledges, he had wished to enter the church from motives of ambition. "Now," he says, in a statement of his reasons for wishing to enter into the ministry, published in the supplementary volume of his Remains, "I trust I may now say that I would be a minister, that I may do good; and, although I am sensible of the awful importance of the pastoral charge, I would sacrifice every thing for it, in the hope that I should be strengthened to discharge the duties of that sacred office." His desire of entering the church had now become so predominant, that his friends, although ́able to do little to assist his views, would no longer oppose them; and Mr. Pigott and Mr. Dashwood, both clergymen at Nottingham, and his friend Mr. Almond, who was now at Queen's College, Cambridge, undertook to do their best to procure an adequate support for him during his university studies. At this period he obtained a month's leave of absence from his employers, which he spent in seclusion in the village of Wilford, near Clifton Woods, the theme of his chief poem. At the expiration of this term he returned, with all his fond hopes withered; the efforts in his favour had not yet been attended with success, and he appears to have despaired of accomplishing the wish of his heart. He now applied himself with even redoubled diligence to the prosecution of all his former studies; night and day was he |