LIFE OF 



thing to commend, and he shall not be disappointed : we 

 commend his exertions, and his laudable endeavours to 

 excel ; but we cannot compliment him with having learned 

 the difficult art of writing good poetry. 



'• Such lines as these will sufficiently prove our asser- 

 tion : — 



" ' Here would I run, a vi-ionary Boy, 



"Wlien tlie hoarse thunder shook the vaulted Sky, 

 And, fancy led, beheld the Almighty's form 

 Sternly careering in the eddying storm.' 



" If Mr White should be instructed bv Alma-mater, 

 he will, doubtless, produce better sense and betterrhyraes." 



I know not who was the writer of this precious article. 

 It is certain that Henry could have no personal enemy ; 

 his volume fell into the hands of some dull man, who 

 took it up in an hour of ill-humour, turned over the 

 leaves to look for faults, and finding that Boy and Shj 

 were not orthodox rhymes, according to his wise creed 

 of criticism, sate down to blast the hopes of a boy, who 

 had confessed to him all his hopes and all his difficulties, 

 and thrown himself upon his mercy. With such a 

 letter before him (by mere accident I saw that which 

 had been sent to the Critical Review), even though the 

 poems had been bad, a good man would not have said 

 so ; he would have avoided censure, if he had found it 

 impossible to bestow praise. But that the reader may 

 perceive the wicked injustice, as well as the cruelty of 

 this reviewal, he need only read " To the Herb Rope- 

 marj'," p. 95, " To the Morning," p. 96, as a few speci- 

 mens of the volume, thus contemptuously condemned 

 because Boy and Shy are used as rhymes in it. 



An author is proof against reviewing, when, like my- 

 self, he has been reviewed above seventy times ; but the 

 opinion of a reviewer upon his first publication has 

 more eifect, both upon his feelings and his success, than 

 it ought to have, or would have, if the mystery of the 

 vngentle craft were more generally understood. Henry 

 wrote to the editor to complain of the cruelty with which 



