Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/303

Rh school career. He very early showed his taste for poetry, and is said to have written a comedy at sixteen. Through life he was a good reader and reciter of poetry, and early evinced some histrionic talent; for in the winter of 1732, he took a female part in the "Andrea" of Terence, and also gained much applause by his impersonation of Marcia in "Cato."

Some proof of his early poetical powers is given by an anecdote told of a visit of Pope to the school in 1733. The veteran satirist was staying at the Earl of Peterborough's, near Southampton, and was taken by his Lordship to Winchester to see the College. The Earl gave on the occasion ten guineas, to be disposed of in prizes to the boys, and Pope set as a subject for English verse "Peterborough." Whitehead was one of six who gained prizes.

His successful essays in verse were confined to his mother-tongue; for in Latin epigrams and verses he was deficient. We are told, however, that he was employed to translate into Latin the first epistle of the "Essay on Man." Next to his poetical and histrionic tastes, his school-days have been chiefly mentioned as the time when he formed some of those friendships with the great which were ultimately of much advantage to him. At Winchester he was the associate of Lord Drumlanrig, Sir Charles Douglas, Sir Robert Burdett, Sir Bryan Broughton, and other boys of patrician birth. For this, and his long residence in the house of Lord and Lady Jersey, he has not escaped the charge of toadyism. Mr. Macaulay has called him "the most successful tuft-hunter of his day." One of his biographers suggests that his delicacy of mind and body may have led him to such companions, in preference to boys of coarser habits. The apology is more amiable than sagacious. Though he may possibly have preferred such