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, "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."

SONNET IN HIS SICKNESS.

Yes, 'twill be over soon.-This sickly dream
Of life will vanish from my feverish brain;
And death my wearied spirit will redeem
From this wild region of unvaried pain.
Yon brook will glide as softly as before-

Yon landscape smile-yon golden harvest grow—
Yon sprightly lark on mounting wing will soar
When Henry's name is heard no more below.
I sigh when all my youthful friends caress-
They laugh in health, and future evils brave;

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, ix. 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."

Them shall a wife and smiling children bless,
While I am mouldering in my silent grave.
God of the just-Thou gav'st the bitter cup;
I bow to thy behest, and drink it up.'

SONNET TO CONSUMPTION.

Gently, most gently, on thy victim's head,
Consumption, lay thine hand!-let me decay,
Like the expiring lamp, unseen away,
And softly go to slumber with the dead.
And if 'tis true, what holy men have said,
That strains angelic oft foretell the day
Of death to those good men who fall thy prey,
Oh let the aerial music round my bed,
Dissolving sad in dying symphony,

Whisper the solemn warning in mine ear,
That I may bid my weeping friends good-bye
Ere I depart upon my journey drear:
And, smiling faintly on the painful past,
Compose my decent head, and breathe my last.

SOLITUDE.

It is not that my lot is low,

That bids this silent tear to flow;
It is not grief that bids me moan,
It is that I am all alone.

In woods and glens I love to roam,
When the tired hedger hies him home;
Or by the woodland's pool to rest,
When the pale star looks on its breast.

Yet, when the silent evening sighs
With hallow'd airs and symphonies,
My spirit takes another tone,
And sighs that it is all alone.

The autumn leaf is sere and dead,

It floats upon the water's bed:
I would not be a leaf, to die
Without recording sorrow's sigh.

The woods and winds, with sullen wail,

Tell all the same unvaried tale;

I've none to smile when I am free,

And when I sigh to sigh with me.

"I know but one way of fortifying my soul against all gloomy presages and terrors of mind, and that is, by securing to myself the friendship and protection of that Being who disposes of events, and governs futurity. He sees at one view the whole thread of my exist ence: when I lay me down to sleep, I recommend myself to His care; when I awake, I give myself up to His direction. Amidst all the evils that threaten me, I will look up to Him for help, and question not but that He will either avert them, or turn them to my advantage. Though I know neither the time nor the manner of the death I am to die, I am not at all solicitous about it, because I am sure that He knows them both, and that He will not fail to support and comfort me under them."-ADDISON; Spectator, No. 7.

Yet, in my dreams, a form I view
That thinks on me, and loves me too:
I start, and when the vision's flown,
I weep that I am all alone.

ODE TO DISAPPOINTMENT.

Come, Disappointment, come!
Not in thy terrors clad;

Come in thy meekest, saddest guise;
Thy chastening rod but terrifies
The restless and the bad.

But I recline
Beneath thy shrine,

And, round my brow resign'd, thy peaceless cypress twine.

Though Fancy flies away

Before thy hollow tread,

Yet Meditation, in her cell,

Hears, with faint ear, the lingering knell

That tells her hopes are dead;

And though the tear

By chance appear,

Yet can she smile, and say, "My all was not laid here.”
Come, Disappointment, come!

Though from Hope's summit hurl'd,
Still, rigid Nurse, thou art forgiven,
For thou severe wert sent from heaven
To wean me from the world:
To turn my eye

From vanity,

And point to scenes of bliss that never, never die.

What is this passing scene?

A peevish April day!

A little sun-a little rain,

And then night sweeps along the plain,

And all things fade away.

Man (soon discuss'd)

Yields up his trust,

And all his hopes and fears lie with him in the dust.

Oh, what is beauty's power?

It flourishes and dies;

Will the cold earth its silence break,
To tell how soft, how smooth a check
Beneath its surface lies?

Mute, mute is all

O'er Beauty's fall;

Her praise resounds no more when mantled in her pall.

The most beloved on carth

Not long survives to-day;

So music past is obsolete

And yet 'twas sweet, 'twas passing sweet,
But now 'tis gone away.

Thus does the shade

In memory fade,

When in forsaken tomb the form belov'd is laid.

When soon this hand will freeze, this throbbing heart be still?

Come, Disappointment, come!

Thou art not stern to me;
Sad monitress! I own thy sway;
A votary sad in early day,

I bend my knee to thee:
From sun to sun

My race will run;

I only bow, and say, "My God, thy will be done!"

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 question'd Winter's sway,
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.

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

When marshall'd 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 ;

The storm was loud-the night was dark;
The ocean yawn'd-and rudely blow'd

The wind that toss'd 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 moor'd-my perils o'er-
I'll sing, first in night's diadem,

For ever and forevermore,

The Star-the Star of Bethlehem!

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 lay?

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 would consecrate to thee,

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

1 "The torch of his inspiration was certainly kindled at the inner shrine; but it was darkly destined that his fair dawn was to have no meridian, and with a heart full of youthful promise and of lofty aspirations-devoted to the noblest and purest objects of humanity-he died while his feet were yet on the threshold of manhood. Three, at least, of the great magnates of literature lamented his fate, and were loud in his praises. On examining his posthumous papers, Coleridge and Southey alike expressed their astonishment at so much genius united to so much industry; and Byron, in a truculent satire, wherein almost nobody was spared, truth-stricken, suspended the lash, to scatter flowers liberally on his early grave."-MOIR,