671 



WHITE, REV. JOSEPH. 



WHITE, ROBERT. 



where the education he received, whatever it amounted to, had the 

 effect of inspiring him with a love of reading and study, which he car- 

 ried so far in his leisure hours that hia attainments at length attracted 

 the notice of a neighbouring gentleman of fortune, who furnished him 

 with the means of entering himself at Wadham College, Oxford. This 

 was probably when he was about three-aud-twenty, since he is stated to 

 have taken his degree of M.A. in 1773. At that date the only one of 

 the Oriental languages which he knew seems to have been the Hebrew. 

 He now began, under the encouragement of Dr. Moore, afterwards 

 successively Bishop of Bangor and Archbishop of Canterbury, to apply 

 himself to the Arabic and others, and made rapid progress. In 1774 

 he was elected to a fellowship in his college (worth about 70Z. per 

 annum), and next year he was appointed Laudian Professor of Arabic 

 in the University, from which he derived about as much more. On 

 entering upon this office, on the 7th of April 1775, he pronounced a 

 Latin oration on the utility of the Arabic tongue in theological studies 

 ('De Utilitate Linguae Arabicse in Studiis Tbeologicis '), which was 

 printed in quarto the same year, and brought him great reputation. 

 His next publication was an edition, with a translation and notes, of 

 the Syriac-Philoxenian Version of the Four Gospels (' Sacrorum Evan- 

 geliorum Versio Syriaca Philoxeniana '), from a celebrated manuscript 

 belonging to New College, which appeared io 2 vols. 4to, in 1778. 

 This was followed the game year by a sermon preached before the 

 University, on the 15th of November 1778, recommending a revisal of 

 the authorised English translation of the Old Testament, which was 

 much applauded both for its learning and eloquence. White was now 

 appointed one of the preachers at Whitehall chapel, and, having taken 

 his degree of B.D. in 1779, he continued to keep his name before the 

 public by publishing in that same year ' A Letter to the Bishop of 

 London (Lowth) suggesting a plan for a new edition of the Septua- 

 gint ; ' and the next year, in 4to, ' A Specimen of the Civil and Military 

 Institutes of Timour, or Tamerlane, rendered from the Persian into 

 English.' The completed translation of the latter work, executed by 

 Major Davy, appeared in 4to in 1783, with a preface, index, geographi- 

 cal notes, &c., by White. 



Soon after this occurred the most remarkable passage in his life. In 

 Easter Term, 1783, he was appointed to preach the Bampton Lectures 

 for the following year : this duty he executed accordingly with extra- 

 ordinary effect ; and when the sermons, the subject of which was ' A 

 View of Christianity and Mahometanism, in their History, their Evi- 

 dence, and their Effects,' were published, soon after their delivery, the 

 admiration with which they had been heard from the pulpit was borne 

 out by an equally flattering reception from the reading world, which 

 demanded a second edition of the volume within a twelvemonth. A 

 wealthy prebend in the cathedral of Gloucester, bestowed upon him 

 by the Lord Chancellor (Thurlow), speedily rewarded the learned and 

 eloquent author, who in 1787 took his degree of D.D., and was now 

 looked upon as one of the chief ornaments of the University. Soon 

 after this however a strange discovery was made. In May 1788 died 

 suddenly the Rev. Samuel Badcock, who bad for some time been one of 

 the most active and able writers in the ' Monthly Review ' and other 

 periodical publications of the day, chiefly on theological subjects ; and 

 in his pocket-book was found a promissory note from White for 500?., 

 dated Wadham College, 7th of August, 1786. From letters afterwards 

 found among Badcock's papers it was abundantly proved that this 

 note was granted by White in payment for assistance which he had 

 secretly obtained from Badcock in the composition of his Bampton 

 Lectures. White, upon being applied to, first shuffled, and then tried 

 what he could do by bullying : by his blundering management he pro- 

 voked the parties in whose hands the secret was, to make an exposure 

 of the whole affair ; and then it turned out that Badcock had not been 

 his only coadjutor that he had also employed the services of Dr. Parr 

 in the same way. Badcock, it would appear, was aware of Parr having 

 a hand in the matter ; Parr, much to his indignation when the truth 

 came out, had been kept in entire ignorance of Badcock's share in it. 

 White had meanwhile paid the money to Badcock's representatives ; 

 but in 1789, Badcock's friend, the Rev. Dr. R. B. Gabriel, preacher at 

 the Octagon chapel in Bath, by whom the discovery had been made, 

 published the whole story in an octavo pamphlet, entitled 'Facts 

 relating to Dr. White's Bampton Lectures.' To this White replied the 

 next year in another pamphlet, which he called ' A Statement of Dr. 

 White's Literary Obligations to the late Rev. Mr. Samuel Badcock, and 

 the Rev. Samuel Parr, LL.D.' This statement amounts substantially 

 to an admission of the charges, the undeniable facts being merely 

 attempted to be excused or apologised for. But the most complete 

 account of this curious affair is that given by Dr. John Johnson in his 

 ' Memoirs of Dr. Parr,' London, 1828, pp. 216-290. The numerous 

 letters which are printed by Dr. Johnson present the strangest de- 

 velopment of the system of importunate mendicancy which White 

 appears to have carried on, not only upon this but other occasions. 

 And yet it is difficult after all to assign what would seem to ordinary 

 people an adequate motive for his conduct. He was unquestionably a 

 man of sterling talent, and probably quite capable of writing as good 

 lectures as those he begged or bought ; and it could hardly have been 

 indolence that induced him to take the course he did ; for the trouble 

 he gave himself in managing his scheme of complicated deception, and 

 in fitting into the form of a continuous writing what he wrote himself 

 and what he got from others, must have been fully equivalent to the 



labour of original composition. One thing is clear, that his object was 

 of the lowest kind the producing such discourses as would be most 

 likely to procure him preferment or money, however he might come 

 by them. Parr, it may be added, who in one letter characterises him 

 as uniting to the darkest management the clumsiest execution, always 

 believed that his own and Badcock's were not the only pens he had 

 laid under contribution ; his notion was, that another of White's 

 friends, Dr. John Parsons, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, was a 

 main auxiliary in the preparation of the Bampton Lectures from begin- 

 ning to end, though " without being let into the secret of other persons 

 being also employed." 



White's calculation as to preferment was not disappointed. He was 

 soon after promoted by the crown to a canonry of Christ Church ; 

 besides which, having in 1790 vacated his fellowship by marriage, he 

 was presented by his college to the living of Melton in Suffolk. His 

 subsequent publications were his well-known ' Diatessaron,' or chrono- 

 logical arrangement of the passages in the Greek text of the Four 

 Gospels containing the history of the Life of Christ, which appeared in 

 Svo in 1800, and has been several times reprinted ; his ' Aegyptiaca, 

 or Observations on certain Antiquities of Egypt ' (containing the Arabic 

 text, with a Latin translation of Abdallatif's Description of Egypt), 

 4to, 1801 ; a critical edition of the Greek New Testament, exhibiting 

 the alterations proposed by Griesbach in the common text, 2 vols. cr. 

 Svo, 1808 ; and a sequel to this, in a Latin synopsis of the system of 

 criticism adopted by Griesbach, ' Crisews Griesbachianae in Novum 

 Testamentum Synopsis,' which appeared in 1811. He died at his 

 residence in Christ Church, May 22nd, 1814. 



WHITE, REV. JOSEPH BLANCO, was descended paternally from 

 an Irish Roman Catholic family. In the early part of the last century, 

 William White went over to Seville, in Spain, where he succeeded to the 

 then flourishing business of an exporting merchant carried on by his 

 mother's brother. He was raised by the king of Spain to the rank of 

 the noblesse, which his posterity retained. But when after his death 

 the business fell into the hands of his son, the house failed, and the 

 family were left for a time with very limited resources. This son had 

 married a Spanish lady of the name of Crespo y Neve, connected with 

 the old Andalusian nobility ; and Joseph Blanco White, commonly 

 designated in Spain Don Jose Maria Blanco y Crespo, who was born at 

 Seville, llth July 1775, was their son. 



The commercial business of the family had beeti re-established after 

 the bankruptcy, and Joseph was placed in the first instance in his 

 father's counting-house. When he was about twelve years old however 

 his parents complied with his own desire of allowing him to be educated 

 for the Church. In the end of the year 1799 he was ordained a priest. 

 But a dislike to the profession he had thus chosen soon took possession 

 of him. He came to England in March 1810, and spent the remainder 

 of his life in this country. The same year he set up in London a 

 monthly periodical work in Spanish, entitled ' El Espanol,' which he 

 carried on for nearly five years ; and in 1814 upon its discontinuance 

 the English government bestowed upon the editor a pension of 250?., 

 which he enjoyed so long as he lived. About the same time he joined 

 the Church of England, originally with the view of pursuing the 

 clerical profession; but this intention he soon dropped. His religious 

 creed after this gradually passed through various grades, from evan- 

 gelicalism to unitarianism, then to rationalism, till at last it seems to 

 have nearly evaporated into scepticism. He first made himself gene- 

 rally known to English readers by a series of papers which he con- 

 tributed in 1820 to the 'New Monthly Magazine,' under the title of 

 ' Letters from Spain, by Don Leucadion Dobhdo,' and which were 

 afterwards extended and published separately in 1822. In the last- 

 mentioned year he set up a second Spanish Journal, * Las Varie- 

 dades,' which was published quarterly, and continued for about three 

 years. Other separate works followed, both in Spanish and English ; 

 those among the latter that attracted most attention being his ' Practical 

 and Internal Evidence against Catholicism,' 1S25, and again 1826; 

 'The Poor Man's Preservative against Popery,' 1825, several times 

 reprinted ; ' Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a 

 Religion,' (iu answer to Moore's well known work) Dublin, 2 vols. 

 12mo, 1833. He was also an occasional contributor to the ' Quarterly 

 Review,' to the ' London Review,' established in 1829 (of which he waa 

 the editor for the sis months that it lasted), to the ' London niul 

 Westminster Review,' to the ' Journal of Education,' to the ' Dublin 

 University Review,' and ,to the ' Christian Teacher.' He resided occa- 

 sionally at Oxford and Dublin as well as in London; and iu 1839 he 

 settled in Liverpool, where he continued till his death, which took 

 place on the 20th of May, 1841. Of White's writings probably those 

 that will last the longest are the papers which have been published 

 since his death under the title of ' The Life of the Reverend Joseph 

 Blanco White, written by himself ; with portions of his correspondence ; 

 edited by John Hamilton Thorn,' London, 3 vols. Svo, 1845. 



WHITE, ROBERT, an English line and mezzotint engraver, born 

 in London in 1645. He learnt drawing and etching of David Loggan, 

 for whom he drew and engraved many buildings. He has engraved a 

 large collection of English portraits, many of which were drawn 

 by himself from the life in lead-pencil upon vellum. He drew also 

 the heads of Sir Godfrey Kneller and his brother, which are engraved 

 in Sandrart's ' Teutsche Academic,' &c. Sir Godfrey painted White's 

 portrait in return. White engraved the first Oxford Almanac in 1674. 



