From the red fury of thy justice fled,
Swifter than torrents from their rocky bed.
Fear with a sicken'd silver tinged their hue,
The guilty fear where vengeance is their due.

Many of the pieces, confessedly his own, furnish
descriptions of natural objects, equally happy with
those so much admired in the Rowleian poems.
When golden Autumn, wreath'd in ripen'd corn,
From purple clusters pour'd the foamy wine,
Thy genius did his sallow brows adorn,
And made the beauties of the season thine.
With rustling sound the yellow foliage flies,
And wantons with the wind in rapid whirls,
The gurgling rivulet to the vallies hies,
Whilst on its bank the spangled serpent curls.

Pale rugged Winter bending o'er his tread;
His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew;
His eyes a dusky light congeal'd and dead,
His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue.

His train a motley'd, sanguine, sable cloud,
He limps along the russet dreary moor,

Whilst rising whirlwinds, blasting keen and loud,
Roll the white surges to the sounding shore.

The lofty elm, the oak of lordly look,
The willow shadowing the babbling brook,
The hedges blooming with the sweets of May,
With double pleasure mark'd the gladsome way.

In "Resignation," from which these lines are taken,

there is a fine personification of Hope, though the application of it is designedly ludicrous.

See Hope array'd in robes of virgin white,
Trailing an arch'd variety of light,

Comes showering blessings on a ruin'd realm,
And shows the crown'd director of the helm.

With him poetry looks best when she is

All deftly mask'd as hoar antiquity.

Scarcely any of these later poems are free from grammatical incorrectness or ambiguity of expression. Some are debased by the more serious fault of ribaldry and profaneness. His irreligion, however, seems to have been rather the fluctuating of a mind that had lost its hold on truth for a time, than the scepticism of one confirmed in error. He acknowledges his dependence on a Creator, though he casts off his belief in a Redeemer. His incredulity does not appear so much the offspring of viciousness refusing the curb of moral restraint, as of pride unwilling to be trammelled by the opinions of the multitude. We cannot conceive that, with a faculty so highly imaginative, he could long have continued an unbeliever; or, perhaps, that he could ever have been so in his heart. But he is a portentous example of the dangers to which an inexperienced youth, highly gifted by nature, is exposed, when thrown into the midst of greedy speculators, intent only on availing

themselves of his resources for their own advantage, and without any care for his safety or his peace.

Some years ago the present laureat (Southey) undertook the office of editing his works, for the benefit of his sister, Mrs. Newton. It is to be lamented, that a project so deserving of encouragement does not appear to have been successful.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE was born at Nottingham, on the twenty-first of March, 1785. His father, John, was a butcher; his mother, Mary Neville, was of a respectable family in Staffordshire. Of the schoolmistress, who taught him to read and whose name was Garrington, he has drawn a pleasing picture in his verses entitled Childhood. At about six years of age he began to learn writing, arithmetic, and French, from the Rev. John Blanchard; and when out of school was employed in carrying about the butcher's basket. Some lines "On being confined to School one pleasant Summer Morning," written at the age of thirteen, by which time he had been placed under the tuition of a Mr. Shipley, are nearly equal to any he

afterwards produced. Next year he was made to work at a stocking-loom, preparatively to his learning the business of a hosier; but his mother, seeing the reluctance with which he engaged in an employment so ill-suited to his temper and abilities, prevailed on his father, though not without much difficulty, to fix him in the office of Messrs. Coldham and Endfield, attorneys in Nottingham. As his parents could not afford to pay a fee, he was (in 1799) engaged to serve for two years, and at the end of that term he was articled. Most of his time that could be spared from the duties of the office was, at the recommendation of his masters, spent in learning Latin, to which, of his own accord he added Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Some knowledge of chemistry, astronomy, electricity, and some skill in music and drawing, were among his other voluntary acquirements. White was one of those, who feel an early and importunate craving for distinction. He had already been chosen member of a literary society in his native town; and soon after his election, as Mr. Southey relates, "he lectured upon genius, and spoke extempore for about two hours, in such a manner, that he received the unanimous thanks of the society, and they elected this young Roscius of Oratory their Professor of Literature." He next became a writer in several of the Monthly Miscellanies; and (in 1803) put forth a volume of poems. A few words of unfortunate criti

cism in one of the Reviews, which in a few years more he would have learned to smile at, had nearly crushed his hopes as an author; when Mr. Southey, into whose hands both the Review and the Poems themselves chanced to fall, generously came to his relief. The protection of one so deservedly eminent could not fail of affording him some comfort: though he still complained that "the Review went before him whereever he turned his steps, that it haunted him incessantly, and that he was persuaded it was an instrument in the hands of Satan to drive him to distraction.

cerns.

It is not usual to hear a poet, much less a young poet, complaining that Satan is busied about his conBut his mind, which had before been disposed to scepticism, was now determined with such force to an extreme of devotional feeling, as scarcely to retain its due balance. In what manner the change was effected, it is not very material to inquire; but the different accounts which Mr. Southey has given of the matter, according to the information he received at different times, may serve to shew how little dependance is to be placed on relations of this kind. At first he tells us "that Mr. Pigott, the curate of St. Mary's, Nottingham, hearing what was the bent of his religious opinions, sent him, by a friend, Scott's Force of Truth, and requested him to peruse it attentively, which he promised to do. Having looked at the book, he told the person who brought it to him, that he would soon