WHITE, HENRY KIRKS (1785-1806), English poet, was born at Nottingham, the son of a butcher, on March 21, 1785. He was articled to a lawyer. Capel Lofft encouraged him to pub lish Clifton Grove, a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems, dedicated to Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire. The book was violently at tacked in the Monthly Review (Feb. 1804), but White was in some degree compensated by a kind letter from Robert Southey. Through the efforts of his friends, he was entered as a sizar at St. John's college, Cambridge, spending a year beforehand with a private tutor. Close application to study induced a serious illness, and fears were entertained for his sanity, but he went into resi dence at Cambridge, with a view to taking holy orders, in the autumn of 1805. The strain of continuous study proved fatal, and he died on Oct. 19, 1806. He was buried in the church of All
Saints, Cambridge. Much of his fame was due to sympathy in spired by his early death, but Byron agreed with Southey in forming a high estimate of the young man's promise.
His Remains, with his letters and an account of his life, were edited (3 vols., 1807-22) by Robert Southey. See prefatory notices by Sir Harris Nicolas to his Poetical Works (new ed., 1866) in the "Aldine Edition" of the British poets; by H. K. Swann in the volume of selections (1897) in the Canterbury Poets; and by John Drinkwater to the edition in the "Muses' Library." See also J. T. Godfrey and J. Ward, The Homes and Haunts of Henry Kirke White (1908).