Henry Kirke White

[4] Seeing the results of White's diligent studies and his deteriorating health, his master offered to release him from his contract if he had sufficient means to go to college.

He received encouragement from Capel Lofft, the friend of Robert Bloomfield, and published in 1803, aged 17,Clifton Grove, a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems, dedicated to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

[5] One of the better known ones was 'The Fair Maid of Clifton' and another was 'Clifton Grove' in which were the controversial lines:- Or, where the town’s blue turrets dimly rise, And manufacture taints the ambient skies, The pale mechanic leaves the lab’ring loom, The air-pent hold, the pestilential room, And rushes out, impatient to begin The stated course of customary sin.

Close application to study induced a serious illness[5]—consumption was the disease, according to Sir Harris Nicholas's memoir—to which he ultimately became a victim, and to which White made many allusions in his poems and letters.

[12] Much of his fame was due to sympathy inspired by his early death; but Lord Byron agreed with Southey about the young man's promise.

[15] His Remains, with his letters (which along with White's poems contain many allusions to himself that they may almost be considered an autobiography[16]) and an account of his life, were edited (5 vols., 1807–1822) by Robert Southey.

[5] Lord Byron said of White in a tributary eulogy 'while life was in its spring, thy young muse just waved her joyous wing'.