_Henry Kirke White_, 1785-1806: the son of a butcher, this gifted youth displayed, in his brief life, such devotion to study, and such powers of mind, that his friends could not but predict a brilliant future for him, had he lived. Nothing that he produced is of the highest order of poetic merit, but everything was full of promise. Of a weak constitution, he could not bear the rigorous study which he prescribed to himself, and which hastened his death. With the kind assistance of Mr. Capel Lofft and the poet Southey, he was enabled to leave the trade to which he had been apprenticed and go to Cambridge. His poems have most of them a strongly devotional cast. Among them are _Gondoline_, _Clifton Grove_, and the _Christiad_, in the last of which, like the swan, he chants his own death-song. His memory has been kept green by Southey's edition of his _Remains_, and by the beautiful allusion of Byron to his genius and his fate in _The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. His sacred piece called _The Star of Bethlehem_ has been a special favorite: When marshalled on the nightly plain The glittering host bestud the sky, One star alone of all the train Can fix the sinner's wandering eye. _Bishop Percy_, 1728-1811: Dr. Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, deserves particular notice in a sketch of English Literature not so much for his own works,--although he was a poet,--as for his collection of ballads, made with great research and care, and published in 1765. By bringing before the world these remains of English songs and idyls, which lay scattered through the ages from the birth of the language, he showed England the true wealth of her romantic history, and influenced the writers of the day to abandon the artificial and reproduce the natural, the simple, and the romantic. He gave the impulse which produced the minstrelsy of Scott and the simple stories of Wordsworth. Many of these ballads are descriptive of the border wars between England and Scotland; among the greatest favorites are _Chevy Chase, The Battle of Otterburne, The Death of Douglas_, and the story of _Sir Patrick Spens_. _Anne Letitia Barbauld_, 1743-1825: the hymns and poems of Mrs. Barbauld are marked by an adherence to the artificial school in form and manner; but something of feminine tenderness redeems them from the charge of being purely mechanical. Her _Hymns in Prose for Children_ have been of value in an educational point of view; and the tales comprised in _Evenings at Home_ are entertaining and instructive. Her _Ode to Spring_, which is an imitation of Collins's _Ode to Evening_, in the same measure and comprising the same number of stanzas, is her best poetic effort, and compares with Collins's piece as an excellent copy compares with the picture of a great master. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE LATER DRAMA.