by which she endeavors to break those chains of benevolence and social affection that link the welfare of every particular with that of the whole. Remember that the greatest honor you can pay to the Author of your being is by such a cheerful behavior as discovers a mind satisfied with his dispensations."

Here my preceptress paused, and I was going to express my acknowledgments for her discourse, when a ring of bells from the neighboring village, and a new-risen sun darting his beams through my windows, awakened me.

ODE TO WISDOM.

The solitary bird of night

Through the pale shades now wings his flight,

And quits the time-shook tower

Where, shelter'd from the blaze of day,

In philosophic gloom he lay

Beneath his ivy bower.

With joy I hear the solemn sound
Which midnight echoes waft around,
And sighing gales repeat:

Fav rite of Pallas !' I attend.

And faithful to thy summons bend,
At Wisdom's awful seat.

She loves the cool, the silent eve,

Where no false shows of life deceive,

Beneath the lunar ray:

Here Folly drops each vain disguise,

Nor sports her gaily-color'd dyes
As in the glare of day.

O! Pallas, queen of every art

That glads the sense, or mends the heart,
Bless'd source of purer joys;

In every form of beauty bright,
That captivates the mental sight
With pleasure and surprise;
To thine unspotted shrine I bow;
Assist thy modest suppliant's vow,

That breathes no wild desires:
But taught, by thy unerring rules,
To shun the fruitless wish of fools,
To nobler views aspires.

Not fortune's gem, ambition's plume,
Not Cytherea's2 fading bloom,

Be objects of my prayer:

Minerva, the goddess of wisdom.

2 Venus.

Let avarice, vanity, and pride,
These glittering, envied toys divide,
The dull rewards of care:

To me thy better gifts impart,
Each moral beauty of the heart,
By studious thought refined:
For wealth, the smiles of glad content;
For power, its amplest, best extent,
An empire o'er my mind.

When fortune drops her gay parade,
When pleasure's transient roses fade,
And wither in the tomb,
Unchanged is thy immortal prize,
Thy ever-verdant laurels rise
In undecaying bloom.

By thee protected, I defy

The coxcomb's sneer, the stupid lie
Of ignorance and spite;

Alike contemn the leaden fool,
And all the pointed ridicule

Of undiscerning wit.

From envy, hurry, noise, and strife,
The dull impertinence of life,

In thy retreat I rest;

Pursue thee to thy peaceful groves,
Where Plato's sacred spirit roves,
In all thy graces dress'd.
He bade Ilissus' tuneful stream
Convey the philosophic theme
Of perfect, fair, and good:
Attentive Athens caught the sound,
And all her listening sons around
In awful silence stood.

Reclaim'd, her wild licentious youth
Confess'd the potent voice of truth,
And felt its just control;

The passions ceased their loud alarms,
And virtue's soft, persuasive charms
O'er all their senses stole.

Thy breath inspires the poet's song,
The patriot's free unbiass'd tongue,
The hero's generous strife;
Thine are retirement's silent joys,
And all the sweet, endearing ties
Of still, domestic life!

1 A small stream near Athens.

No more to fabled names confined,
To thee, Supreme, All-perfect Mind,
My thoughts direct their flight;
Wisdom's thy gift, and all her force
From thee derived, unchanging source
Of intellectual light!

O! send her sure, her steady ray,
To regulate my doubtful way
Through life's perplexing road;
The mists of error to control,
And through its gloom direct my soul
To happiness and good!
Beneath her clear discerning eye,
The visionary shadows fly,
Of folly's painted show;

She sees, through every fair disguise,
That all, but virtue's solid joys,
Is vanity and woe.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE, 1785-1806.

"Unhappy White! while life was in its spring,
And thy young Muse just waved her joyous wing,
The spoiler came-and all thy promise fair
Has sought the grave, to sleep forever there.
Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,
When science' self destroyed her favorite son!
Yes! she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,

She sowed the seeds-but death has reaped the fruit.
'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low:
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,

No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart
That wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart:
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nurs'd the pinion which impell'd the steel;
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast."

So sang Lord Byron of that most gifted youth, Henry Kirke White, whose sincere and ardent piety was equalled only by his genius, his learning, and his uncommon ardor in the pursuit of knowledge. Had Byron possessed the moral and Christian principles of him whom he thus most beautifully eulogizes, what English poet would have stood before him-what one

would have exerted a more happy influence-what one would have been more the delight of the wise and the good? As it is, the consideration of what Byron's character was will ever be a great drawback from the feelings of pleasure which his poems would otherwise have inspired.

Henry Kirke White, the son of John White, a butcher of Nottingham, was born at that place on the 21st of March, 1785. From his very early years he showed a strong thirst for knowledge, and at the age of seven tried his hand at prose composition. About this time, he was put to a school in his native place, where he greatly distinguished himself among his juvenile companions. He learned the rudiments of mathematics and the French language, and displayed wonderful powers of acquisition. His father intended to bring him up to his own business; and one whole day in every week, and his leisure hours on other days, were employed in carrying the butcher's basket. But this proved so irksome to him that, at the request of his mother, he was apprenticed to a stocking weaver, to prepare himself for the hosiery line. This proved scarcely more satisfactory than his former occupation; and, after a year, his mother found means to place him in the office of Coldham & Enfield, attorneys of Nottingham. He devoted himself with steadiness to his profession during the day, and passed his evenings in learning the Latin, Greek, and Italian languages; together with chemistry, astronomy, drawing, and music. To these acquirements he soon added practical mechanics. 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 next year a pair of twelve inch globes for an imaginary tour from London to Edinburgh.

In 1803, appeared a volume of his poems. The statement in the preface that they were written by a youth of seventeen, and published to enable him to get the means to aid him in his studies, should have disarmed the severity of criticism; yet the poems were contemptuously noticed in the "Monthly Review." This treatment Henry felt most keenly. But the book fell into the hands of Mr. Southey, who most kindly and generously wrote to the young poet to encourage him; and very soon friends sprung up who enabled him to pursue the great object of his ambition-admission to the University of Cambridge. Hitherto his religious opinions had inclined to Deism; but a friend having put into his hands "Scott's Force of Truth," an entire change was wrought thereby in his whole character. A most decided and earnest piety now became his prominent characteristic, and he resolved to devote his life to the cause of religion, and with great zeal entered upon the study of divinity, in connection with his other studies. His application indeed was so intense that a severe illness was the result; on his recovery from which, he produced those beautiful lines written in Milford churchyard.

In the latter of 1804, his long-delayed hopes of entering the university were about to be gratified. "I can now inform you," he writes to a friend, "that I have reason to believe my way through college is close before me. From what source I know not; but, through the hands of Mr.

Simeon, I am provided with thirty pounds per annum, and I can command twenty or thirty more from my friends, in all probability, until I take my degree. The friends to whom I allude are my mother and brother." Poetry was now abandoned for severer studies. He competed for one of the university scholarships, and at the end.of the term was pronounced the first man of his year. Twice he distinguished himself in the following year, was again pronounced first at the great college examination, and also one of the three best theme writers, between whom the examiners could not decide. But this distinction was purchased at the sacrifice of health, and ultimately of life. Of this, he himself was sensible. "Were I," he writes to a friend, "to paint a picture of Fame crowning a distinguished undergraduate, after the senate-house examination, I would represent her as concealing a death's head under a mask of beauty." He went to London to recruit his shattered nerves and spirits; but it was too late. He returned to his college, renewed his studies with unabated ardor, and sank under the effort. Nature was at length overcome; he grew delirious, and died on the 19th of October, 1806, in his twenty-first year.

Thus fell, a victim to his own genius, one whose abilities and acquirements were not more conspicuous than his moral and social excellence. "It is not possible," says Southey,1"to conceive a human being more amiable in all the relations of life." And again: "He possessed as pure a heart as ever it pleased the Almighty to warm with life." Of his fervent piety, his letters, his prayers, and his hymns will afford ample and interesting proof. It was in him a living and quickening principle of goodness, which sanctified all his hopes and all his affections; which made him keep watch over his own heart, and enabled him to correct the few symptoms, which it ever displayed, of human imperfection.

With regard to his poems, the same good judge observes, "Chatterton is the only youthful poet whom he does not leave far behind him ;" and, in alluding to some of his papers, handed to him for perusal after the death of this gifted youth, he observes, "I have inspected all the existing manuscripts of Chatterton, and they excited less wonder than these."

The "Remains of Henry Kirke White, with an Account of his Life," by Robert Southey, 2 vols.

"What an amazing reach of genius appears in the Remains of Henry Kirke White!' How unfortunate that he should have been lost to the world almost as soon as known. I greatly lament the circumstances that forced him to studies so contrary to his natural talent."-Sir E. Brydges," Censura Literaria," vol. ix. p. 393. Again, this same discriminating critic says, "There are, I think, among these Remains,' a few of the most exquisite pieces in the whole body of English poetry. Conjoined with an easy and flowing fancy, they possess the charm of a peculiar moral delicacy, often conveyed in a happy and inimitable simplicity of language."