Up for auction a RARE! "Spanish Poet" José María Blanco y Crespo Hand Written Note Dated 1829.

ES-2586

Joseph Blanco White, born José

María Blanco y Crespo (11 July 1775 – 20 May 1841), was a Spanish theologian

and poet. Blanco White was

born in Seville,

Spain. He had Irish ancestry and was the son of the merchant Guillermo Blanco

(alias White, an English viceconsul, who had established himself in Seville

during the reign of Fernando VI) and María Gertrudis Crespo y Neve. Blanco

White was educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood. In Seville, Spain, he had

worked with Melchor de

Jovellanos, an adviser to the king who advocated reform. After his

ordination in 1800, White's religious doubts led him to leave Spain and go to

England in 1810. There he ultimately entered the Anglican

Church, having studied theology at Oxford and made the friendship of

Thomas Arnold,

John Henry Newman the Reverend E.T. Daniell and Richard

Whately. He became tutor in Whately's family when Whately became the

Archbishop of Dublin

in 1831. While in this position White embraced Unitarian views. He found asylum

amongst the Unitarians of Liverpool,

and he died in the city on 20 May 1841.  Blanco

White edited El Español, a monthly Spanish magazine in London, from 1810

to 1814, which was strongly for the independence of Spanish America. In its

pages, he commented on the course of the insurgency based on information from

Spanish America and British sources. In turn, articles for El Español

were reprinted in the insurgent press. He advocated that the Spanish Cortes

(parliament) recognize juntas in Spanish America that remained loyal to the

Spanish monarchy after the Napoleon's invasion of Spain and ouster of the

Bourbon monarchy. He also was in favor of free trade, not just the closed

Spanish system of comercio libre that allowed free trade ports in Spain

with Spanish America and all ports within Spanish America. He received a civil list pension of

£250.[ His principal writings are Doblado's

Letters from Spain (1822) (under the pseudonym of "Don Leucado

Doblado", and written in part at Holland House in London), Evidence

against Catholicism (1825), Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in

Search of a Religion (2 vols., 1834) and Observations on Heresy and

Orthodoxy (1835). They all show literary ability and were extensively read

in their day. He also translated Paley's Evidences and the Book of

Common Prayer into Spanish. White is best remembered, however, for his

sonnet "Night and Death" ("Mysterious Night! when our first

parent knew"), which was dedicated to Samuel Taylor Coleridge on its appearance

in the Bijou for 1828 and has since found its way into several anthologies.

Three versions are given in the Academy of 12 September 1891.