LIFE OF 



portant as it may appear, is mentioned, because she had 

 the good sense to perceive his extraordinary capacity, 

 and spoke of what it promised with confidence. She 

 was an excellent woman, and he describes her with 

 affection in his poem upon Childhood, At a very early 

 age his love of reading was decidedly manifested ; it was 

 a passion to which everything else gave w^ay. " I could 

 fancy," says his eldest sister, " I see him in his little 

 chair, with a large book upon his knee, and my m.other 

 calling, ' Henry, my love, come to dinner ;' which was 

 repeated so often without being regarded, that she was 

 obliged to change the tone of her voice before she could 

 rouse him." When he was about seven, he would creep 

 unperceived into the kitchen, to teach the servant to read 

 and write ; and he continued this for some time before 

 it was discovered that he had been thus laudably era- 

 ployed. He wrote a tale of a Swiss emigrant, which 

 was probably his first composition, and gave it to this 

 servant, being ashamed to show it to his mother. The 

 consciousness of genius is always at first accompanied 

 with this diffidence ; it is a sacred, solitary feeling. No 

 forward child, however extraordinary the promise of his 

 childhood, ever produced anything truly great. 



When Henry was about six, he was placed under the 

 Rev, John Blanchard, who kept, at that time, the best 

 school in Nottingham. Here he learnt writing, arith- 

 metic, and French. When he was about eleven, he one 

 day wrote a separate theme for every boy in his class, 

 which consisted of about twelve or fourteen. The master 

 said he had never known them write so well upon any 

 subject before, and could not refrain from expressing his 

 astonishment at the excellence of Henry's. It was con- 

 sidered as a great thing for him to be at so good a school, 

 yet there were some circumstances which rendered it less 

 advantageous to him than it might have been. Mrs 

 White had not yet overcome her husband's intention of 

 breeding him up to his own business : and by an arrange- 

 which took up too much of his time, and would have 

 crushed his spirit, if that " mounting spirit" could have 

 been crushed, one whole day in the week, and his leisure 



