HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 



he had been treated. This remonstrance produced the 

 ibilowing answer the next month. 



Monthly Review, JMarcIi 1804. 



ADDRESS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



*' In the course of our long critical labours we have 

 necessarily been forced to encounter the resentment, or 

 withstand tlie lamentations of many disappointed au- 

 thors : but we have seldom, if ever, been more aifected 

 than by a letter from Mr White of Nottingham, com- 

 plaining of the tendency of our strictures on his poem 

 of Clifton Grove, in our last number. His expostula- 

 tions are written with a warmth of feeling in which we 

 truly sympathize, and which shall readily excuse, with 

 us, some expressions of irritation : but Mr White must 

 receive our most serious declaration that we did ' judge 

 of the book by the book itself;' excepting only, that 

 from his former letter, we were desirous of mitigating 

 the pain of that decision which our public duty required 

 us to pronounce. We spoke with the utmost sincerity, 

 when we stated our wishes for patronage to an unfriended 

 man of talents, for talents Mr White certainly possesses, 

 and we repeat those wishes with equal cordiality. Let 

 him still trust that, like Mr Giffard (see preface to his 

 translation of Juvenal), some Mr Cookesley may yet 

 appear to foster a capacity which endeavours to escape 

 from its present confined sphere of action ; and let the 

 opulent inhabitants of Nottingham reflect that some 

 portion of that wealth which they have worthily ac- 

 quired by the habits of industry, will be laudably applied 

 in assisting the eflforts of mind." 



Henry was not aware that reviewers are infallible. 

 His letter seems to have been answered by a different 

 writer ; the answer has none of the common place and 

 vulgar insolence of the criticism ; but to have made any 

 concession would have been admitting that a review can 

 do wrong, and thus violating the fundamental principle 

 of its constitution. 



The poems which had been thus condemned, appeared 

 to me to discover strong marks of genius. I had shown 



