Joseph Blanco White was born of Irish parents in Seville, Spain, July 11, 1775, and was put in training for a mercantile career, but he left his father’s counting house and was ordained a priest in 1796, and continued in the priesthood until 1810, when, because of the political crisis in Spain, he went to England, residing in London as a man of letters, where he contributed largely to the leading reviews and periodicals, and produced several books, treating mostly of Spain and its affairs. He died in May, 1841. His “Sonnet to Night” was pronounced by Coleridge the finest in the English language.

Mysterious Night when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue;
Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent hue,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And, lo! creation widened in man’s view.
Who would have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst flower and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind?
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife—
If light can thus deceive us, wherefore not life?