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They own there's granted all such place can give,
But live repining,-for 'tis there they live! [see,
"Grandsires are there, who now no more must
No more must nurse upon the trembling knee,
The lost lov'd daughter's infant progeny !
Like death's dread mansion, this allows not place
For joyful meetings of a kindred race.

"Is not the matron there, to whom the son
Was wont at each declining day to run;
He (when his toil was over) gave delight,
By lifting up the latch, and one Good night?'
Yes, she is here; but nightly to her door
The son, still lab'ring, can return no more.

"Widows are here, who in their huts were left,
Of husbands, children, plenty, ease, bereft;
Yet all that grief within the humble shed
Was soften'd, soften'd in the humbled bed:
But here, in all its force, remains the grief,
And not one soft'ning object for relief.

To gain the plaudits of the knowing few,
Gamblers and grooms, what would not Blaney
do?"-

"Cruel he was not.-If he left his wife,
He left her to her own pursuits in life;
Deaf to reports, to all expenses blind,
Profuse, not just-and careless but not kind."
pp. 193, 194.

Clelia is another worthless character, drawn with infinite spirit, and a thorough knowledge of human nature. She began life as a sprightand a beauty in the half-bred circles of the ly, talking, flirting girl, who passed for a wit borough; and who, in laying herself out to entrap a youth of better condition, unfortunately fell a victim to his superior art, and forfeited her place in society. She then became the smart mistress of a dashing attorney-then tried to teach a school-lived as the favourite of an innkeeper-let lodgingswrote novels-set up a toyshop-and, finally, was admitted into the almshouse. There is nothing very interesting perhaps in such a story; but the details of it show the wonderful accuracy of the author's observation of charweep-acter; and give it, and many of his other pieces, a value of the same kind that some pictures are thought to derive from the truth and minuteness of the anatomy which they display. There is something original, too, and well conceived, in the tenacity with which he represents this frivolous person, as adhering to her paltry characteristics, under cluding view is as follows. every change of circumstances. The con

"Who can, when here, the social neighbour
Who learn the story current in the street? [meet?
Who to the long-known intimate impart
Facts they have learn'd, or feelings of the heart?-
They talk, indeed; but who can choose a friend,
Or seek companions, at their journey's end?"-
"What, if no grievous fears their lives annoy,
Is it not worse, no prospects to enjoy ?
'Tis cheerless living in such bounded view,
With nothing dreadful, but with nothing new;
Nothing to bring them joy, to make them
The day itself is, like the night, asleep;
Or on the sameness, if a break be made,
'Tis by some pauper to his grave convey'd;
By smuggled news from neighb'ring village told,
News never true, or truth a twelvemonth old!

By some new inmate doom'd with them to dwell,
Or justice come to see that all goes well;
Or change of room, or hour of leave to crawl
On the black footway winding with the wall,
'Till the stern bell forbids, or master's sterner call.
"Here the good pauper, loosing all the praise
By worthy deeds acquir'd in better days,
Breathes a few months; then, to his chamber led.
Expires-while strangers prattle round his bed.”—
pp. 241-244.

These we take to be specimens of Mr. Crabbe's best style;-but he has great variety; --and some readers may be better pleased with his satirical vein-which is both copious and original. The Vicar is an admirable sketch of what must be very difficult to draw; —a good, easy man, with no character at all. His little, humble vanity;-his constant care to offend no one;-his mawkish and feeble gallantry-indolent good nature, and love of gossipping and trifling-are all very exactly, and very pleasingly delineated.

To the character of Blaney, we have already objected, as offensive, from its extreme and impotent depravity. The first part of his history, however, is sketched with a masterly hand; and affords a good specimen of that sententious and antithetical manner by which Mr. Crabbe sometimes reminds us of the style and versification of Pope.

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Blaney, a wealthy heir at twenty-one, At twenty-five was ruin'd and undone :

"Now friendless, sick, and old, and wanting bread,
The first-born tears of fallen pride were shed-
True, bitter tears; and yet that wounded pride,
Among the poor, for poor distinctions sigh'd!
Though now her tales were to her audience fit ;
Though now her dress-(but let me not explain
Though loud her tones, and vulgar grown her wit;
The piteous patchwork of the needy vain,
The flirish form to coarse materials lent,
And one poor robe through fifty fashions sent);
Though all within was sad, without was mean-
Still 'twas her wish, her comfort to be seen:
She would to plays on lowest terms resort,
Where once her box was to the beaux a court;
And, strange delight! to that same house, where
Join'd in the dance, all gaiety and glee, [she
Now with the menials crowding to the wall,
She'd see, not share, the pleasures of the ball,
How she too triumph'd in the years of old."
And with degraded vanity unfold,

pp. 209, 210.

The graphic powers of Mr. Crabbe, indeed, are too frequently wasted on unworthy subjects. There is not, perhaps, in all English poetry a more complete and highly finished piece of painting, than the following descrip tion of a vast old boarded room or warehouse, which was let out, it seems, in the borough, as a kind of undivided lodging, for beggars and vagabonds of every description. No Dutch painter ever presented an interior more dis

These years with grievous crimes we need not load,
He found his ruin in the common road;
Gam'd without skill, without inquiry bought,
Lent without love, and borrow'd without thought.tinctly to the eye; or ever gave half such a

But, gay and handsome, he had soon the dower
Of a kind wealthy widow in his power;
Then he aspir'd to loftier flights of vice!
To singing harlots of enormous price:
And took a jockey in his gig to buy

An horse, so valued, that a duke was shy:

group to the imagination.

"That window view!-oil'd paper and old glass
Stain the strong rays, which, though impeded, pass,
And give a dusty warmth to that huge room,
The conquer'd sunshine's melancholy gloom;

When all those western rays, without so bright,
Within become a ghastly glimm'ring light,
As pale and faint upon the floor they fall,
Or feebly gleam on the opposing wall:
That floor, once oak, now piec'd with fir unplan'd,
Or, where not piec'd, in places bor'd and stain'd;
That wall once whiten'd, now an odious sight,
Stain'd with all hues, except its ancient white.

"Where'er the floor allows an even space,
Chalking and marks of various games have place;
Boys, without foresight, pleas'd in halters swing!
On a fix'd hook men cast a flying ring;
While gin and snuff their female neighbours share,
And the black beverage in the fractur'd ware.

The dark warm flood ran silently and slow;
There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide
There hang his head, and view the lazy tide
In its hot slimy channel slowly glide;
Where the small eels that left the deeper way
For the warm shore, within the shallows play,
Where gaping muscles, left upon the mud,
Slope their slow passage to the fallen flood;-
Here dull and hopeless he'd lie down and trace
How sidelong crabs had scrawl'd their crooked race;
Or sadly listen to the tuneless cry

Of fishing Gull or clanging Golden Eye."

pp. 305, 306. Under the head of Amusements, we have a

"On swinging shelf are things incongruous stor'd; Scraps of their food-the cards and cribbage board-spirited account of the danger and escape of

With pipes and pouches; while on peg below,
Hang a lost member's fiddle and its bow:
That still reminds them how he'd dance and play,
Ere sent untimely to the Convict's Bay!

"Here by a curtain, by a blanket there,
Are various beds conceal'd, but none with care;
Where some by day and some by night, as best
Suit their employments, seek uncertain rest;
The drowsy children at their pleasure creep
To the known crib, and there securely sleep.
"Each end contains a grate, and these beside
Are hung utensils for their boil'd and fry'd-
All us'd at any hour, by night, by day,
As suit the purse, the person, or the prey.

"Above the fire, the mantel-shelf contains Of china-ware some poor unmatch'd remains; There many a tea-cup's gaudy fragment stands, All plac'd by Vanity's unwearied hands; For here she lives, e'en here she looks about, To find small some consoling objects out. "High hung at either end, and next the wall, Two ancient mirrors show the forms of all."

pp. 249-251.

The following picture of a calm sea fog is by the same powerful hand :

"When all you see through densest fog is seen;
When you can hear the fishers near at hand
Distinctly speak, yet see not where they stand;
Or sometimes them and not their boat discern,
Or half-conceal'd some figure at the stern;
Boys who, on shore, to sea the pebble cast,
Will hear it strike against the viewless mast;
While the stern boatman growls his fierce disdain,
At whom he knows not, whom he threats in vain.
"Tis pleasant then to view the nets float past,
Net after net till you have seen the last;
And as you wait till all beyond you slip,
A boat comes gliding from an anchor'd ship,
Breaking the silence with the dipping oar,
And their own tones, as labouring for the shore;
Those measur'd tones with which the scene agree,
And give a sadness to serenity. pp. 123, 124.

We add one other sketch of a similar character, which though it be introduced as the haunt and accompaniment of a desponding spirit, is yet chiefly remarkable for the singular clearness and accuracy with which it represents the dull scenery of a common tide river. The author is speaking of a solitary and abandoned fisherman, who was compelled

"At the same times the same dull views to see,
The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree;
The water only, when the tides were high,
When low, the mud half-covered and half-dry;
The sun-burn'd tar that blisters on the planks,
And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks:
Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,
As the tide rolls by the impeded boat.
"When tides were neap, and, in the sultry day,
Through the tall bounding mud-banks made their
Which on each side rose swelling, and below [way,

a party of pleasure, who landed, in a fine evening, on a low sandy island, which was covered with the tide at high water, and were left upon it by the drifting away of their boat. "On the bright sand they trode with nimble feet, Dry shelly sand that made the summer seat; The wond'ring mews flew flutt'ring o'er their head, And waves ran softly up their shining bed."-p. 127.

While engaged in their sports, they discover their boat floating at a distance, and are struck with instant terror.

Alas! no shout the distant land can reach, Nor eye behold them from the foggy beach; Again they join in one loud powerful cry, Then cease, and eager listen for reply. None came-the rising wind blew sadly by. They shout once more, and then they turn aside, To see how quickly flow'd the coming tide: Between each cry they find the waters steal On their strange prison, and new horrors feel; Foot after foot on the contracted ground The billows fall, and dreadful is the sound! Less and yet less the sinking isle became, And there was wailing, weeping, wrath, and blame. Had one been there, with spirit strong and high, Who could observe, as he prepar'd to die, He might have seen of hearts the varying kind, And trac'd the movement of each different mind: He might have seen, that not the gentle maid Was more than stern and haughty man afraid," &c.

"Now rose the water through the less'ning sand, And they seem'd sinking while they yet could stand! The sun went down, they look'd from side to side, Nor aught except the gath'ring sea descry'd; Dark and more dark, more wet, more cold it grew, And the most lively bade to hope adieu; Children, by love, then lifted from the seas, Felt not the waters at the parent's knees, But wept aloud; the wind increas'd the sound, And the cold billows as they broke around. But hark! an oar, That sound of bliss! comes dashing to their shore: Still, still the water rises, Haste!' they cry, Oh! hurry, seamen, in delay we die!" The drifted boat, and thus her crew reliev'd.) (Seamen were these who in their ship perceiv'd And now the keel just cuts the cover'd sand, Now to the gunwale stretches every hand; With trembling pleasure all confus'd embark, And kiss the tackling of their welcome ark; While the most giddy, as they reach the shore, Think of their danger, and their God adore."

pp. 127-130.

In the letter on Education, there are some fine descriptions of boarding-schools for both sexes, and of the irksome and useless restraints which they impose on the bounding spirits and open affections of early youth. This is followed by some excellent remarks on the ennui which so often falls to the lot of the learned-or that description at least of the

"That woe could wish, or vanity devise." "Sick without pity, sorrowing without hope." 'Gloom to the night, and pressure to the chain"and a great multitude of others.

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learned that are bred in English univer- | been the model of our author in the follow sities. But we have no longer left room for ing:any considerable extracts; though we should have wished to lay before our readers some part of the picture of the secretaries-the description of the inns-the strolling playersand the clubs. The poor man's club, which partakes of the nature of a friendly society, is described with that good-hearted indulgence which marks all Mr. Crabbe's writings.

"The printed rules he guards in painted frame, And shows his children where to read his name.' We have now alluded, we believe, to what is best and most striking in this poem; and, though we do not mean to quote any part of what we consider as less successful, we must say, that there are large portions of it which appear to us considerably inferior to most of the author's former productions. The letter on the Election, we look on as a complete failure—or at least as containing scarcely any thing of what it ought to have contained.The letters on Law and Physic, too, are tedious; and the general heads of Trades, Amusements, and Hospital Government, by no means amusing. The Parish Clerk, too, we find dull, and without effect; and have already given our opinion of Peter Grimes, Abel Keene, and Benbow. We are struck, also, with several omissions in the picture of a maritime borough. Mr. Crabbe might have made a great deal of a press-gang; and, at all events, should have given us some wounded veteran sailors, and

some voyagers with tales of wonder from foreign lands.

The style of this poem is distinguished, like all Mr. Crabbe's other performances, by great force and compression of diction-a sort of sententious brevity, once thought essential to poetical composition, but of which he is now the only living example. But though this is almost an unvarying characteristic of his style, it appears to us that there is great variety, and even some degree of unsteadiness and inconsistency in the tone of his expression and versification. His taste seems scarcely to be sufficiently fixed and settled as to these essential particulars; and, along with a certain quaint, broken, and harsh manner of his own, we think we can trace very frequent imitations of poets of the most opposite character. The following antithetical and half-punning lines of Pope, for instance :

"Sleepless himself, to give his readers sleep ;" and

"Whose trifling pleases, and whom trifles please ;— have evidently been copied by Mr. Crabbe in the following, and many others :

"And in the restless ocean, seek for rest." "Denying her who taught thee to deny." "Scraping they liv'd, but not a scrap they gave." Bound for a friend, whom honour could not bind." "Among the poor, for poor distinctions sigh'd."

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In the same way, the common, nicely balanced line of two members, which is so characteristic of the same author, has obviously

On the other hand, he appears to us to be frequently misled by Darwin into a sort of mock-heroic magnificence, upon ordinary occasions. The poet of the Garden, for instance, makes his nymphs

"Present the fragrant quintessence of tea." And the poet of the Dock-yards makes his carpenters

"Spread the warm pungence of o'erboiling tar." Mr. Crabbe, indeed, does not scruple, on some occasions, to adopt the mock-heroic in good earnest. When the landlord of the Griffin becomes bankrupt, he says— "The insolvent Griffin struck her wings sublime," and introduces a very serious lamentation over the learned poverty of the curate, with this most misplaced piece of buffoonery :"Oh! had he learn'd to make the wig he wears!" One of his letters, too, begins with this wretched quibble—

"From Law to Physic stepping at our ease, We find a way to finish-by Degrees." There are many imitations of the peculiar rhythm of Goldsmith and Campbell, too, as

our readers must have observed in some of our longer specimens; - but these, though combination, are better, at all events, than they do not always make a very harmonious the tame heaviness and vulgarity of such verses as the following :—

'As soon

Could he have thought gold issued from the moon." "A seaman's body-there'll be more to-night." "Those who will not to any guide submit,

Nor find one creed to their conceptions fitTrue Independents: while they Calvin hate, They heed as little what Socinians state."-p. 54. Here pits of crag, with spongy, plashy base,

To some enrich th' uncultivated space," &c. &c. Of the sudden, harsh turns, and broken conciseness which we think peculiar to himself, the reader may take the following speci

mens:

"Has your wife's brother, or your uncle's son, Done aught amiss; or is he thought t' have done ?"

Stepping from post to post he reach'd the chair; And there he now reposes :-that's the Mayor !" He has a sort of jingle, too, which we think is of his own invention;-for instance, "For forms and feasts that sundry times have past, And formal feasts that will for ever last." "We term it free and easy; and yet we

Find it no easy matter to be free."

We had more remarks to make upon the taste and diction of this author; and had noted several other little blemishes, which we meant

to have pointed out for his correction: but we have no longer room for such minute criticism -from which, indeed, neither the author nor the reader would be likely to derive any great benefit. We take our leave of Mr. Crabbe, therefore, by expressing our hopes that, since it is proved that he can write fast, he will not allow his powers to languish for want of exercise; and that we shall soon see him again repaying the public approbation, by entitling limself to a still larger share of it. An author generally knows his own forte so much better than any of his readers, that it is commonly a very foolish kind of presumption to offer any advice as to the direction of his efforts; but we own we have a very strong desire to see Mr. Crabbe apply his great powers to the construction of some interesting and connected story. He has great talents for narration; and that unrivalled gift in the delineation of character, which is now used only for the creation of detached portraits, might be turned to ad

mirable account in maintaining the interes and enhancing the probability, of an extended train of adventures. At present, it is impossible not to regret, that so much genius should be wasted in making us perfectly acquainted with individuals, of whom we are to know nothing but the characters. In such a poem, however, Mr. Crabbe must entirely lay aside the sarcastic and jocose style to which he has rather too great a propensity; but which we know, from what he has done in Sir Eustace Grey, that he can, when he pleases, entirely relinquish. That very powerful and original performance, indeed, the chief fault of which is, to be set too thick with images-to be too strong and undiluted, in short, for the digestion of common readers-makes us regret, that its author should ever have stopped to be trifling and ingenious or condescended to tickle the imaginations of his readers, instead of touching the higher passions of their nature.

(November, 1812.)

Tales. By the Reverend GEORGE CRABBE. 8vo. pp. 398. London: 1812.

We are very thankful to Mr. Crabbe for these Tales; as we must always be for any thing that comes from his hands. But they are not exactly the tales which we wanted. We did not, however, wish him to write an Epic-as he seems from his preface to have imagined. We are perfectly satisfied with the length of the pieces he has given us; and delighted with their number and variety. In these respects the volume is exactly as we could have wished it. But we should have liked a little more of the deep and tragical passions; of those passions which exalt and overwhelm the soul-to whose stormy seat the modern muses can so rarely raise their flight-and which he has wielded with such terrific force in his Sir Eustace Grey, and the Gipsy Woman. What we wanted, in short, were tales something in the style of those two singular compositions-with less jocularity than prevails in the rest of his writings -rather more incidents-and rather fewer details.

their venial offences, contrasted with a strong sense of their frequent depravity, and too constant a recollection of the sufferings it produces; and, finally, the same honours paid to the delicate affections and ennobling passions of humble life, with the same generous testimony to their frequent existence; mixed up as before, with a reprobation sufficiently rigid, and a ridicule sufficiently severe, of their excesses and affectations.

If we were required to make a comparative estimate of the merits of the present publication, or to point out the shades of difference by which it is distinguished from those that have gone before it, we should say that there are greater number of instances on which he has combined the natural language and manners of humble life with the energy of true passion, and the beauty of generous affection;-in which he has traced out the course of those rich and lovely veins in the rude and unpolished masses that lie at the bottom of society;-and unfolded, in the midThe pieces before us are not of this descrip- dling orders of the people, the workings of tion; they are mere supplementary chapters those finer feelings, and the stirrings of those to "The Borough," or "The Parish Register." ." loftier emotions which the partiality of other The same tone-the same subjects-the same poets had attributed, almost exclusively, to style, measure, and versification;-the same actors on a higher scene. finished and minute delineation of things ordinary and common-generally very engaging when employed upon external objects, but often fatiguing when directed merely to insignificant characters and habits;-the same strange mixture too of feelings that tear the heart and darken the imagination, with starts of low humour and patches of ludicrous imagery-the same kindly sympathy with the humble and innocent pleasures of the poor and inelegant, and the same indulgence for

We hope, too, that this more amiable and consoling view of human nature will have the effect of rendering Mr. Crabbe still more popular than we know that he already is, among that great body of the people, from among whom almost all his subjects are taken, and for whose use his lessons are chiefly intended: and we say this, not only on account of the moral benefit which we think they may derive from them, but because we are persuaded that they will derive more pleasure

from them than readers of any other description. Those who do not belong to that rank of society with which this powerful writer is chiefly conversant in his poetry, or who have not at least gone much among them, and attended diligently to their characters and occupations, can neither be half aware of the exquisite fidelity of his delineations, nor feel in their full force the better part of the emotions which he has suggested. Vehement passion indeed is of all ranks and conditions; and its language and external indications nearly the same in all. Like highly rectified spirit, it blazes and inflames with equal force and brightness, from whatever materials it is extracted. But all the softer and kindlier affections, all the social anxieties that mix with our daily hopes, and endear our homes, and colour our existence, wear a different livery, and are written in a different character in almost every great caste or division of society; and the heart is warmed, and the spirit touched by their delineation, exactly in the proportion in which we are familiar with the types by which they are represented. When Burns, in his better days, walked out in a fine summer morning with Dugald Stewart, and the latter observed to him what a beauty the scattered cottages, with their white walls and curling smoke shining in the silent sun, imparted to the landscape, the present poet answered, that he felt that beauty ten times more strongly than his companion could do; and that it was necessary to be a cottager to know what pure and tranquil pleasures often nestled below those lowly roofs, or to read, in their external appearance, the signs of so many heartfelt and long-remembered enjoyments. In the same way, the humble and patient hopes-the depressing embarrassments-the little mortifications-the slender triumphs, and strange temptations which arise in middling life, and are the theme of Mr. Crabbe's finest and most touching representations-can only be guessed at by those who glitter in the higher walks of existence; while they must raise many a tumultuous throb and many a fond recollection in the breasts of those to whom they reflect so truly the image of their own estate, and reveal so clearly the secrets of their habitual sensations.

We cannot help thinking, therefore, that though such writings as are now before us must give great pleasure to all persons of taste and sensibility, they will give by far the greatest pleasure to those whose condition is least remote from that of the beings with whom they are occupied. But we think also, that it was wise and meritorious in Mr. Crabbe to occupy himself with such beings. In this country, there probably are not less than three hundred thousand persons who read for amusement or instruction, among the middling classes of society. In the higher

By the middling classes, we mean almost all those who are below the sphere of what is called fashionable or public life, and who do not aim at distinction or notoriety beyond the circle of their equals in fortune and situation.

classes, there are not as many as thirty thousand. It is easy to see therefore which a poet should choose to please, for his own glory and emolument, and which he should wish to delight and amend, out of mere philanthropy. The fact too we believe is, that a great part of the larger body are to the full as well educated and as high-minded as the smaller; and, though their taste may not be so correct and fastidious, we are persuaded that their sensibility is greater. The misfortune is, to be sure, that they are extremely apt to affect the taste of their superiors, and to counterfeit even that absurd disdain of which they are themselves the objects; and that poets have generally thought it safest to invest their interesting characters with all the trappings of splendid fortune and high station, chiefly because those who know least about such matters think it unworthy to sympathise in the adventures of those who are without them! For our own parts, however, we are quite positive, not only that persons in middling life would naturally be most touched with the emotions that belong to their own condition, but that those emotions are in themselves the most powerful, and consequently the best fitted for poetical or pathetic representation. Even with regard to the heroic and ambitious passions, as the vista is longer which leads from humble privacy to the natural objects of such passions; so, the career is likely to be more impetuous, and its outset more marked by striking and contrasted emotions:-and as to all the more tender and less turbulent affections, upon which the beauty of the pathetic is altogether dependant, we apprehend it to be quite manifest, that their proper soil and nidus is the privacy and simplicity of humble life;-that their very elements are dissipated by the variety of objects that move for ever in the world of fashion; and their essence tainted by the cares and vanities that are diffused in the atmosphere of that lofty region. But we are wandering into a long dissertation, instead of making our readers acquainted with the book before us. The most satisfactory thing we can do, we believe, is to give them a plain account of its contents, with such quotations and remarks as may occur to us as we proceed.

The volume contains twenty-one tales;the first of which is called "The Dumb Orators." This is not one of the most engaging; and is not judiciously placed at the portal, to tempt hesitating readers to go forward. The second, however, entitled "The Parting Hour," is of a far higher character, and contains some passages of great beauty and pathos. The story is simply that of a youth and a maiden in humble life, who had loved each other from their childhood, but were too poor to marry. The youth goes to the West Indies to push his fortune; but is captured by the Spaniards and carried to Mexico, where, in the course of time, though still sighing for his first love, he marries a Spanish girl, and lives twenty years with her and his children-he is then impressed, and car

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