“ In 1861–1878 he was chief of the United States Revenue Marine Bureau, for the district of New York. When he was 21 years old he wrote his sonnet, “Washington: Pater Patriae,” which, published anonymously, was frequently ascribed to Wordsworth, and by William Cullen Bryant was ascribed to Landor; White did not admit his authorship until 1852. In 1853 he contributed anonymously to Putnam's Magazine (October and November) , an acute and destructive criticism of Collier's folio manuscript emendations of Shakespeare ”

“ How they are Written and How they are not Written (1861) , containing some of the best and worst of 1200 hymns submitted to a committee (of which White was a member) in a competition for a prize offered for a national hymn; Poetry, Lyrical, Narrative and Satirical, of the Civil War (1866) ; The Fall of Man, or, The Loves of the Gorillas, By a Learned Gorilla (1871) ”