WHITE, Henry Kirke, an amiable young poet, was the son of a butcher in Nottingham, where he was born on the 21st of March 1785. He began to indite poems at the age of thirteen, and he showed a passion for books from his earliest years. His father was compelled to employ him as message boy on all available occasions; and he might be seen frequently poring over a volume as he bore along the butcher's basket. The lad's mother, who, both by ability and by education, was considerably above her class, got the father to change his intention of bringing up the youth to his own trade. Accordingly, at the age of fourteen, Kirke White was placed at a stocking-loom to learn the trade of a hosier. He remained at this business only a year, when he was placed in an attorney's office in his native town. During his leisure hours he acquired a fair knowledge of Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, chemistry, astronomy, electricity, drawing, and music. He, besides, practised as a speaker in a literary society in Nottingham, and exercised his pen on prose and poetry for various periodicals. White became much impressed about this time with serious views of religion, which accordingly tinges all his future writings. In 1804 he was induced by the proprietor of the Monthly Mirror, to publish a volume of poems, which was crushed by the critics before it had well seen the light. The little book was fortunate enough to gain him the friendship of Southey, to whose generous care the memory of the youthful poet is now largely indebted for its fame. White had cherished for some time the apparently impossible idea of ultimately gaining a university education, and of becoming a clergyman. This prospect he was enabled to carry out in 1804, by the liberality of the Rev. Mr. Simeon who procured for him a sizarship in St John's College, Cambridge. White studied night and day for two years at the university, and was rewarded by seeing his name placed first in the list of the general college examinations of each year. But while the poor youth was gaining college laurels, he was burning out the feeble lamp of his own life. He died of consumption on the 19th of October 1806, in his twenty-second year.
The touching circumstances of Kirke White's death, more than any inherent excellence in his verse, have made his name be remembered, and his poems be quoted much longer than is ordinarily allotted to the author of mediocre numbers. His poetry, while always pervaded by Christian feeling, and generally by rhythmical melody, is nevertheless flat in tone, and but feeble or imitative in manner. The Remains of Henry Kirke White, which have often been published, were committed to the care of his friend Southey, who, in 1807, performed the part not only of a literary executor, but of an enthusiastic eulogist.