a letter to his brother,- "I can venture to say, with certainty, there was no member of the University, however high his rank or talents, who would not have been happy to have availed themselves of the opportunity of being acquainted with Mr. Henry Kirke White. I mention this to introduce a wish which has been expressed to me so often by the senior members of the University, that I dare not decline the task they have imposed upon me; it is their hope that Mr. Southey will do as much justice to Mr. Henry White's limited wishes, to his unassuming pretensions, and to his rational and fervent piety, as to his various acquirements, his polished taste, his poetical fancy, his undeviating principles, and the excellence of his moral character: and that he will suffer it to be understood, that these inestimable qualities had not been unobserved, nor would they have remained unacknowledged. It was the general observation, that he possessed genius without its eccentricities." Of fervent piety, indeed, his letters, his prayers, and his hymns, will afford ample and interesting proofs. It was in him a living and quickening principle of goodness, which sanctified all his hopes and all his affections; which made him keep watch over his own heart, and enabled him to correct the few symptoms, which it ever displayed, of human imperfection. His temper had been irritable in his younger days; but this he had long since effectually overcome the marks of youthful confidence, which appear in his earliest letters, had also disappeared; and it was impossible for any man to be more tenderly patient of the faults of others, more uniformly meek, or more unaffectedly humble. He seldom discovered any sportiveness of imagination, though he would very ably and pleasantly rally any one of his friends for any little peculiarity; his conversation was always sober and to the purpose. That which is most remarkable in him, is his uniform good sense, a faculty perhaps less common than genius. There never existed a more dutiful son, a more affectionate brother, a warmer friend, nor a devouter Christian. Of his powers of mind it is superfluous to speak; they were acknowledged wherever they were known. It would be idle, too, to say what hopes were entertained of him, and what he might have accomplished in literature. This volume contains what he has left, immature buds and blossoms shaken from the tree, and green fruit; yet will they evince what the harvest would have been, and secure for him that remembrance upon earth for which he toiled. Thou soul of God's best earthly mould, That these Are all that must remain of thee! WORDSWORTH. Keswick, 1807. |