HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

HENRY KIRK WHITE, a young poet, who has accomplished more by the example of his life than by his writings, was a native of Nottingham, where he was born on the 21st of August 1785. His father was a butcher-an 'ungentle craft,' which, however, has had the honour of giving to England one of its most distinguished churchmen, Cardinal Wolsey, and the two poets, Akenside and White. Henry was a rhymer and a stodent from his earliest years. He assisted at his father's business for some time, but in his fourteenth year was put

apprentice to a stocking-weaver. Disliking, as he said, "the thought of spending seven years of his life in shining and folding up stockings, he wanted something to occupy his brain, and he felt that he should be wretched if he continued long at this trade, or indeed in anything except one of the learned professions. He was at length placed in an attorney's office, and applying his leisure hours to the study of languages, he was able, in the course of ten months, to read Horace with tolerable facility, and had made some progress in Greek. At the same time he acquired a knowledge of Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, and even applied himself to the acquisition of some of the sciences. His habits of study and application were unremitting. A London magazine, called the Monthly Preceptor,' having proposed prize-themes for the youth of both sexes, Henry became a candidate, and while only in his fifteenth year, obtained a silver medal for a translation from Horace; and the following year a pair of twelve-inch globes from an imaginary tour from London to Edinburgh. He next became a correspondent in the Monthly Mirror,' and was introduced to the acquaintance of Mr. Capel Lofft and of Mr. Hill, the proprietor of the above periodical. Their encourage ment induced him to prepare a volume of poems for the press, which appeared in 1803. The longest piece in the collection is a descriptive poem in the style of Goldsmith, entitled Clifton Grove,' which shews a remarkable proficiency in smooth and elegant versification and language. In his preface to the volume, Henry had stated that the poems were the production of a youth of seventeen, published for the purpose of facilitating his future studies, and enabling him 'to pursue those inclinations which might one day place him in an honourable station in the scale of society.' Such a declaration should have disarmed the severity of criticism; but the volume was contemptuously noticed in the Monthly Review,' and Henry felt_the most exquisite pain from the unjust and ungenerous critique. Fortunately, the volume fell into the hands of Southey, who wrote to the young poet to encourage him, and other friends sprung up to succour his genius, and to procure for him what was the darling object of his ambition, admission to the university of Cambridge. His opinions for some time inclined to deism, without any taint of immorality; but a fellow-student put into his hands Scott's Force of Truth,' and he soon became a decided convert to the spirit and doctrines of Christianity. He resolved upon devoting his life to the promulgation of them, and the Rev. Mr. Simeon, Cambridge, procured for him a sizarship at St. John's College. This benevolent clergyman further promised, with the aid of a friend, to supply him with £30 annually, and his own family were to furnish the remainder necessary for him to go through college. Poetry was now abandoned for severer studies. He competed for one of the university scholarships, and at the end of his term was pronounced the first man of his year. Mr. Catton-his tutor-by procuring for him

exhibitions to the amount of £66 per annum, enabled him to give up the pecuniary assistance which he had received from Mr. Simeon and other friends. This distinction was purchased at the sacrifice of health and life. Were I,' he said, to paint Fame crowning an undergraduate after the senate-house examination, I would represent him as concealing a death's head under the mask of beauty.' He died on the 19th of October 1806 Southey wrote a sketch of his life, and edited his 'Remains,' which proved to be highly popular. A tablet to Henry's memory, with a medallion by Chantrey, was placed in All Saint's Church, Cambridge, by a young American gentleman, Mr. Francis Boot of Boston, and bearing the following inscriptionso expressive of the tenderness, and regret universally felt towards the poet-by Professor Smyth:

Warm with fond hope and learning's sacred flame,
To Granta's bowers the youthful poet came;
Unconquered powers the immortal mind displayed,
But worn with anxious thought, the frame decayed.
Pale o'er his lamp, and in his cell retired,
The martyr student faded and expired.
Oh! genius, taste, and piety sincere,

Too early lost midst studies too severe !

Foremost to mourn was generous Southey seen,

He told the tale, and shewed what White had been;

Nor told in vain. Far o'er the Atlantic wave

A wanderer came, and sought the poet's grave:
On yon low stone he saw his lonely name,
And raised this fond memorial to his fame.

Byron has also consecrated some beautiful lines to the memory of White. The poetry of Henry was all written before his twentieth year, and hence should not be severely judged. If compared, however, with the strains of Cowley or Chatterton at an earlier age, it will be seen to be inferior in this, that no indications are given of great future genius. Whether force and originality would have Come with manhood and learning, is a point which, notwithstanding the example of Byron-a very different mind-may fairly be doubted. It is enough, however, for Henry Kirke White to have afforded one of the finest examples on record of youthful talent and perseverance devoted to the purest and noblest objects.

To an Early Primrose.

Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
Whose modest form, so delicately fine,
Was nursed in whirling storms,

And cradled in the winds.

Thee, when young Spring first questioned Winter's way,
And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight,
Thee on this bank he threw

To mark his victory.

In this low vale, the promise of the year,
Serene, thou openest to the nipping gale,
Unnoticed and alone,

Thy tender elegance.

So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms
Of chill adversity; in some lone walk of life
She rears her head,

Obscure and unobserved;

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows,
Chastens her spotless purity of breast,

And hardens her to bear
Serene the ills of life.

Sonnet.

What art thou, Mighty One! and where thy seat?
Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands,
And thou dost bear within thine awful hands
The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet;
Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind,
Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dead noon,
Or, on the red wing of the fierce monsoon,

Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.
In the drear silence of the polar span

Dost thou repose? or in the solitude

Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan

Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood?

Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace

Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.

The Star of Bethlehem.

When marshalled on the nightly plain,
The glittering host bestud the sky;
One star alone, of all the train,

Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.
Hark! hark! to God the chorus breaks,
From every host, from every gem;
But one alone the Saviour speaks,
It is the Star of Bethlehem.

Once on the raging seas I rode, [dark;
The storm was loud-the night was
The ocean yawned-and rudely blowed
The wind that tossed my foundering
bark.

Deep horror then my vitals froze,
Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem⚫
When suddenly a star arose,

It was the Star of Bethlehem.

It was my guide, my light, my all,

It bade my dark forebodings cease, And through the storm and dangers' thrall,

It led me to the port of peace.
Now safely moored-my perils o'er,
I'll sing, first in night's diadem,
For ever and for evermore,

The Star-the Star of Bethlehem.

Britain a Thousand Years Hence.

Where now is Britain ?-Where her laurelled names,
Her palaces and halls? Dashed in the dust.
Some second Vandal hath reduced her pride,

And with one big recoil hath thrown her back
To primitive barbarity. -Again,

Through her depopulated vales, the scream
Of bloody superstition hollow rings,

And the scared native to the tempest howls

The yell of deprecation. O'er her marts,

Her crowded ports, broods Silence; and the cry
Of the low curlew, and the pensive dash
Of distant billows, breaks alone the void.

Even as the savage sits upon the stone

That marks where stood her capitols, and hears
The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks
From the dismaying solitude-Her bards
Sing in a language that hath perished;

And their wild harps, suspended o'er their graves,
Sigh to the desert winds a dying strain.

Meanwhile the arts, in second infancy,

Rise in some distant clime, and then perchance
Some bold adventurer, filled with golden dreams,
Steering his bark through trackless solitudes,
Where, to his wandering thoughts, no daring prow
Hath ever ploughed before-espies the cliffs
Of fallen Albion.-To the land unknown
He journeys joyful; and perhaps descries
Some vestige of her ancient stateliness;
Then he, with vain conjecture, fills his mind
Of the unheard-of race, which had arrived
At science in that solitary nook,

Far from the civil world: and sagely sighs
And moralises on the state of man.

The Christiad.

Concluding stanzas, written shortly before his death.

Thus far have I pursued my solemn theme,
With self-rewarding toil; thus far have sung

Of godlike deeds, far loftier than beseem
The lyre which I in early days have strung;
And now my spirits faint, and I have hung
The shell, that solaced me in saddest hour,

On the dark cypress; and the strings which rung
With Jesus' praise, their harpings now are o'er,

Or, when the breeze comes by, moan, and are heard no more.

And must the harp of Judah sleep again?

Shall I no more reanimate the say?

Oh! Thou who visitest the sons of men,

Thou who dost listen when the humble pray,

One little space prolong my mournful day;

One little lapse suspend thy last decree!

I am a youthful traveller in the way,

And this slight boon wouid consecrate to thee,

Ere I with Death shake hands, and smile that I am free.

JAMES GRAHAME.

The REV. JAMES GRAHAME was born in Glasgow in the year 1765. He studied the law, and practised at the Scottish bar for several years, but afterwards took orders in the Church of England, and was successively curate of Shipton, in Gloucestershire, and of Sedgefield, in the county of Durham. Ill-health compelled him to abandon his curacy when his virtues and talents had attracted notice and rendered him a popular and useful preacher; and on revisiting Scotland, he died on the 14th of September 1811. The works of Grahame consist of Mary, Queen of Scotland,' a dramatic poem published in 1801; 'The Sabbath' (1804), Sabbath Walks' (1805), Biblical Pictures,' 'The Birds of Scotland' (1806), and British Georgics' (1809), all in blank verse. The Sabbath' is the best of his productions, and the "Georgics' the least interesting; for though the latter contains some fine descriptions, the poet is too minute and too practical in his rural

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