Chapter Whichcote to Whitman of W by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Whichcote to Whitman

Whichcote, Benjamin (1609-1683).—Divine, belonged to a good Shropshire family, and was at Cambridge, where he became Provost of King’s College, of which office he was deprived at the Restoration. He was of liberal views, and is reckoned among the Cambridge Platonists, over whom he exercised great influence. His works consist of Discourses and Moral and Religious Aphorisms. In 1668 he was presented to the living of St. Lawrence, Jewry, London, which he held until his death.

Whipple, Edwin Percy (1819-1886).—Essayist and critic, born in Massachusetts, was a brilliant and discriminating critic. His works include Character and Characteristic Men, Literature and Life, Success and its Conditions, Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, Literature and Politics, etc.

Whiston, William (1667-1752).—Theologian, and man of science, born at Norton, Leicestershire, and ed. at Cambridge, where he succeeded Newton as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, was a prominent advocate of the Newtonian system, and wrote a Theory of the Earth against the views of Thomas Burnet (q.v.). He also wrote several theological works, Primitive Christianity Revived and the Primitive New Testament. The Arian views promulgated in the former led to his expulsion from the University His best known work was his translation of Josephus. He was a kindly and honest, but eccentric and impracticable man, and an insatiable controversialist.

White, Gilbert (1720-1793).—Naturalist, born at Selborne, Hants, and ed. along with the Wartons (q.v.) at their father’s school at Basingstoke, and thereafter at Oxford, entered the Church, and after holding various curacies settled, in 1755, at Selborne. He became the friend and correspondent of Pennant the naturalist (q.v.), and other men of science, and published in the form of letters the work which has made him immortal, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). He was never married, but was in love with the well-known bluestocking Hester Mulso, afterwards Mrs. Chapone, who rejected him. He had four brothers, all more or less addicted to the study of natural history.

White, Henry Kirke (1785-1806).—Poet, son of a butcher at Nottingham. At first assisting his father, next a stocking weaver, he was afterwards placed in the office of an attorney. Some contributions to a newspaper introduced him to the notice of Capel Lofft, a patron of promising youths, by whose help he brought out a vol. of poems, which fell into the hands of Southey, who wrote to him. Thereafter friends raised a fund to send him to Cambridge, where he gave brilliant promise. Overwork, however, undermined a constitution originally delicate, and he died at 21. Southey wrote a short memoir of him with some additional poems. His chief poem was the Christiad, a fragment. His best known production is the hymn, “Much in sorrow, oft in Woe.”

White, Joseph Blanco (1775-1841).—Poet, son of a merchant, an Irish Roman Catholic resident at Seville, where he was born, became a priest, but lost his religious faith and came to England, where he conducted a Spanish newspaper having for its main object the fanning of the flame of Spanish patriotism against the French invasion, which was subsidised by the English Government. He again embraced Christianity, and entered the Church of England, but latterly became a Unitarian. He wrote, among other works, Internal Evidences against Catholicism (1825), and Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion, in answer to T. Moore’s work, Travels, etc. His most permanent contribution to literature, however, is his single sonnet on “Night,” which Coleridge considered “the finest and most grandly conceived” in our language.

White, Richard Grant (1822-1885).—Shakespearian scholar, born in New York State, was long Chief of the Revenue Marine Bureau, and was one of the most acute students and critics of Shakespeare, of whose works he published two ed., the first in 1865, and the second (the Riverside) in 1883. He also wrote Words and their Uses, Memoirs of Shakespeare, Studies in Shakespeare, The New Gospel of Peace (a satire), The Fate of Mansfield Humphreys (novel), etc.

Whitehead, Charles (1804-1862).—Poet, novelist, and dramatist; is specially remembered for three works, all of which met with popular favour: The Solitary (1831), a poem, The Autobiography of Jack Ketch