IIENUy KIEKK ■WHITE. 



isting Reviews, and accompanied it with a letter, wherein 

 he stated what his advantages had been, and what were 

 the hopes which he proposed to himself from the publi- 

 cation : requesting from them that indulgence of which 

 his productions did not stand in need, and which it might 

 have been thought, under such circumstances, would not 

 have been withheld from works of less promise. It may 

 be well conceived with what anxiety he looked for their 

 ojjinions, and with what feelings he read the following 

 article in the Monthly Review for February, 1804 : — 



" The circumstances under which this little volume is 

 offered to the public, must in some measure disarm criti- 

 cism. We have been informed that Mr White has scarcely 

 attained his eighteenth year, has hitherto exerted himself 

 in the pursuit of knowledge under the discouragements of 

 penury and misfortune, and now hopes, by this early 

 authorship, to obtain some assistance in the prosecution 

 of his studies at Cambridge. He appears, indeed, to be 

 one of those young men of talents and application who 

 merit encouragement ; and it would be gratifying to us, 

 to hear that this publication had obtained for him a re- 

 spectable patron, for we fear that the mere profit arising 

 from the sale cannot be, in any measure, adequate to his 

 exii;encies as a student at the university. A subscrip- 

 tion, with a statement of the particulars of the Author's 

 case, might have been calculated to have answered his 

 purpose ; but, as a book which is to ' win its way' on the 

 sole ground of its own merit, this poem cannot be con- 

 templated with any sanguine expectation. The author is 

 very anxious, however, that critics should find in itsome- 



the Author was in liis sixteenth year. The ^liscellanies are some of 

 them the productions of a very early age. Of tlie Odes, tliat " To an 

 early Primrose," was written at thirteen — the others are of a later 

 date. — The sonnets are chiefly irregular ; they have, perhaps, no other 

 claim tothatSi3ec(/lcdenomin'ation7thantliat'they consist only of four- 

 teen lines. 



Such are the poems, towards which I entreat the lenity of the pub- 

 lic. The critic will doubtless find in them much to condemn, he may 

 likewise, possibly, discover something to commend. Let him scan my 

 faults with an indulgent eye, and in fhework of tliat correction which 

 I invite, let him remember he is holding the iron Mace of Criticism 

 over the flimsy superstructure of a youth of seventeen, and remember- 

 ing that, may he forbear from crushing by too much rigour the painted 

 butterfly, whose transient colour? may otherwise be capable of affurd- 

 jn T a, nioment's innocent amusement. H. K. White. 



Nottingham. 



