he might have been directed
by a love of study, or by the greater opportunities held out to him of
gratifying his literary ambition; but it is unreasonable to suppose that
he would have voluntarily taken such a measure, if his own conviction
had run counter to it. The attorneys to whom he was bound, were ready
enough to release him; since, though well satisfied with his conduct and
attention to their concerns, they perceived him to be troubled with a
deafness which would incapacitate him for the practice of the law. The
means of supporting him at the University were accordingly supplied by
the liberality of the friends whom he had gained; and after passing a
twelvemonth with the Rev. Mr. Grainger, of Winteringham in Lincolnshire,
to prepare himself, he was in 1805 entered a sizar of St John's,
Cambridge. Here his application to books was so intense, that his health
speedily sank under it. He was indeed "declared to be the first man of
his year;" but the honour was dearly purchased at the expense of
"dreadful palpitations in the heart, nights of sleeplessness and
horrors, and spirits depressed to the very depths of wretchedness." In
July, 1806, his laundress on coming into his room at College, saw him
fallen down in a convulsive fit, bleeding and insensible. His great
anxiety was to conceal from his mother the state to which he was
reduced. At the end of September, he went to London in search of
relaxation and amusement; and in the next month, returned to College
with a cough and fever, which this effort had encreased. His brother, on
being informed of his danger hastened to Cambridge, and found him
delirious. He recovered sufficiently to know him for a few moments; but
the next day sank into a stupor, and on the 19th of October expired. It
was the opinion of his medical attendants, that if he had lived his
intellect would have failed him.

He was buried in All-Saints Church, Cambridge, where his monument,
sculptured by Chantrey, has been placed by Mr. Francis Boott, a stranger
from Boston in America.

After his death all his papers were consigned to the hands of Mr.
Southey. Their contents were multifarious; they comprised observations
on law; electricity; the Greek and Latin languages, from their rudiments
to the higher branches of critical study; on history, chronology, and
divinity. He had begun three tragedies, on Boadicea, Ines de Castro, and
a fictitious story; several poems in Greek, and a translation of Samson
Agonistes. The selection which Mr. Southey has made, consists of copious
extracts from his letters, poems, and essays.

Mr. Southey has truly said of him, that what he is most remarkable for
is _his uniform good sense_. To Chatterton, with whom this zealous
friend and biographer has mentioned him, he is not to be compared.
Chatterton has the force of a young poetical Titan, who threatens to
take Parnassus by storm. White is a boy differing from others more in
aptitude to follow than in ability to lead. The one is complete in every
limb, active, self-confident, and restless from his own energy. The
other, gentle, docile, and animated rather than vigorous. He began, as
most youthful writers have begun, by copying those whom he saw to be the
objects of popular applause, in his own day. He has little distinct
character of his own. We may trace him by turns to Goldsmith,
Chatterton, and Coleridge. His numbers sometimes offend the ear by
unskilful combinations of sound, as in these lines--

  But for the babe she bore beneath her breast:

And--

  While every bleaching breeze that on her blows;

And sometimes, though more rarely, they gratify it by unexpected
sweetness. He could occasionally look abroad for himself, and describe
what he saw. In his Clifton Grove there are some little touches of
landscape-painting which are, as I think, unborrowed.

  What rural objects steal upon the sight,
       *       *       *       *       *
  The brooklet branching from the silver Trent,
  The whispering birch by every zephyr bent,
  The woody island and the naked mead,
  _The lowly hut half hid in groves of reed,
  The rural wicket and the rural stile,
  And frequent interspersed the woodman's pile_.

Among his poems of later date, there is one unfinished fragment in this
manner, of yet higher beauty.

  Or should the day be overcast,
  We'll linger till the show'r be past;
  Where the hawthorn's branches spread
  A fragrant cover o'er the head;
  And list the rain-drops beat the leaves,
  Or smoke upon the cottage eaves;
  Or silent dimpling on the stream
  Convert to lead its silver gleam.

 THE END.