THE

POEMS

OF

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD.

THE

LIFE OF WHITEHEAD,

BY MR. CHALMERS.

WILLIAM ILLIAM WHITEHEAD was born at Cambridge in the beginning of the year 1715. His father was a baker in St. Botolph's parish, and at one time must have been a man of some property or some interest, as he bestowed a liberal education on his eldest son, John, who after entering into the church, held the living of Pershore, in the diocese of Worcester. He would probably have been enabled to extend the same care to William, his second son, had he not died when the boy was at school, and left his widow involved in debts contracted by extravagance or folly. A few acres of land, near Grandchester, on which he expended considerable sums of money, without, it would appear, expecting much return, is yet known by the name of Whitehead's Folly.

William received the first rudiments of education at some common school in Cambridge, and at the age of fourteen was removed to Winchester, having obtained a nomination into that college by the interest of Mr. Bromley, afterward lord Montfort. Of his behaviour while at school his biographer, Mr. Mason, received the following account from Dr. Balguy.

"He was always of a delicate turn, and though obliged to go to the hills with the other boys, spent his time there in reading either plays or poetry; and was also particularly fond of the Atalantis, and all other books of private history or character. He very early exhibited his taste for poetry; for while other boys were contented with showing up twelve or fourteen lines, he would fill half a sheet, but always with English verse. This Dr. Burton, the master, at first discouraged; but, after some time, he was so much charmed, that he spoke of them with rapture. When he was sixteen he wrote a whole comedy.

"In the winter of the year 1732, he is said to have acted a female part in the Andria, under Dr. Burton's direction. Of this there is some doubt: but it is certain that he acted Marcia, in the tragedy of Cato, with much applause.

"In the year 1733, the earl of Peterborough, having Mr. Pope at his house near Southampton, carried him to Winchester to show him the college, school, &c. The earl gave ten guineas to be disposed of in prizes amongst the boys, and Mr. Pope set them a subject to write upon, viz. PETERBOROUGH. Prizes of a guinea each were given

to six of the boys, of whom Whitehead was one. The remaining sum was laid out for other boys in subscriptions to Pine's Horace, then about to be published.

"He never excelled in writing epigrams, nor did he make any considerable figure in Latin verse, though he understood the classics very well, and had a good memory. He was, however, employed to trauslate into Latin the first epistle of the Essay on Man: and the translation is still extant in his own hand. Dobson's success in translating Prior's Solomon had put this project into Mr. Pope's head, and he set various persons to work upon it.

"His school friendships were usually contracted either with noblemen, or gentlemen of large fortune, such as lord Drumlanrig, sir Charles Douglas, sir Robert Burdett, Mr. Tryon, and Mr. Munday of Leicestershire. The choice of these persons was imputed by some of his schoolfellows to vanity, by others to prudence; but might it not be owing to his delicacy, as this would make him easily disgusted with the coarser manners of ordinary boys? He was school-tutor to Mr. Wallop, afterwards lord Lymington, son to the late earl of Portsmouth, and father to the present earl. He enjoyed, for some little time, a lucrative place in the college, that of preposter of the hall.

"At the election in September, 1735, he was treated with singular injustice; for, through the force of superior interest, he was placed so low on the roll, that it was scarce possible for him to succeed to New College. Being now superannuate, he left Winchester of course, deriving no other advantage from the college than a good education: this, however, he had ingenuity enough to acknowledge, with gratitude, in a poem prefixed to the second edition of Dr. Lowth's Life of William of Wickham."

In all this there is nothing extraordinary; nor can the partiality of his biographer conceal that, among the early efforts of his Muse, there is not one which seems to indicate the future poet, although he is anxious to attribute this to his having followed the example of Pope, rather than of Spenser, Fairfax, and Milton. The Vision of Solomon, however, which he copied from Whitehead's juvenile manuscripts, and is reprinted in the present edition, is entitled to considerable praise. Even when a school-boy he had attentively studied the various manners of the best authors, and in the course of his poetical life, attained no small felicity in exhibiting specimens of almost every kind of stanza.

Although he lost his father before he had resided at Winchester above two years, yet by his own frugality, and such assistance as his mother, a very amiable, prudent, and exemplary woman, could give him, he was enabled to remain at school until the election for New College, in which we have seen he was disappointed. Two months after, he returned to Cambridge, where he was indebted to his extraction, low as Mr. Mason thinks it, for what laid the foundation of his future success in life. The circumstance of his being the orphan son of a baker gave him an unexceptionable claim to one of the scholarships founded at Clarehall by Mr. Thomas Pyke, who had followed that trade in Cambridge. His mother accordingly admitted him a sizer in this college, under the tuition of Messrs. Curling, Goddard, and Hopkinson, Nov. 26, 1735. After every allowance is made for the superior value of money in his time, it will remain a remarkable proof of his poverty and economy, that this scholarship, which amounted only to four shillings a week, was in his circumstances a desirable object.

He brought some little reputation with him to college, and his poetical attempts when at school, with the notice Mr. Pope had taken of him, would probably secure him from the neglect attached to inferiority of rank. But it is more to his honour, that by his amiable manners, and intelligent conversation, he recommended himself to the special