George Crabbe.

On to the hall went I, with pace not slow.
But swift as lightning, for a long Dutch hoe,
With which, well-arm'd, I hasten'd to the spot,
To find the viper,-but I found him not.
And, turning up the leaves and shrubs around,
Found only-that he was not to be found.
But still the kittens, sitting as before,
Sat watching close the bottom of the door.
"I hope," said I, "the villain I would kill
Has slipp'd between the door and the door-sill;
And if I make despatch and follow hard,
No doubt but I shall find him in the yard: "
For long ere now it should have been rehearsed,
'Twas in the garden that I found him first.
Even there I found him, there the full-grown cat
His head, with velvet paw, did gently pat,
As curious as the kittens erst had been

To learn what this phenomenon might mean.

Fill'd with heroic ardour at the sight,

And fearing every moment he would bite,

And rob our household of our only cat

That was of age to combat with a rat,

With outstretch'd hoe I slew him at the door,

And taught him NEVER TO COME THERE NO MORE.

Then, here is GEORGE CRABBE, whom Byron would have done better to call "Dryden in worsted stockings," a dense, rough, strongly vitalised nar

rator, without a touch of revolt against the conventions of form, going back, indeed-across Goldsmith and Pope-to the precise prosody used by Dryden at the close of his life for telling tragical stories; a writer absolutely retrogressive, as it at first seems, rejecting all suggestion of change, and completely satisfied with the old media for his peculiar impressions, which are often vehement, often. sinister, sometimes very prosaic and dull, but generally sincere and

direct-Crabbe, a great, solid talent, without grace, or flexibility, or sensitiveness.

George Crabbe (1754-1832) was the son of the salt-master, or collector of saltdues, at Aldeborough, in Suffolk, where he was born on Christmas Eve, 1754. His

childhood was one of pinching poverty, but his father, whose ambition exceeded his means, contrived to send him to fairly good schools at Bungay and at Stowmarket. He was apprenticed at the age of fourteen as errand-boy to a doctor near Bury St. Edmunds, and at seventeen to a surgeon at Woodbridge. In 1774 he published the rhymed anonymous satire called Inebriety. He studied medicine, and set up in practice in Aldeborough, but the profession was so distasteful to him, and his success in it so improbable, that in his twenty-fifth year he abandoned it, and came up to London with a capital of £3 to try his fortune in literature. His poem, The Candidate, was published anonymously

in 1780, but brought with it neither fame nor money. Reduced to absolute distress, the young poet wrote, without an introduction, to Edmund Burke, who saw him, took a fancy to him, and generously befriended him. Under the genial patronage of Burke, who introduced him to Reynolds, Thurlow, and Fox, Crabbe published anonymously The Library in 1781, and, with his name, what is one of his best productions, The Village, in 1783. By Burke's advice, Crabbe qualified himself for holy orders, and returned to Aldeborough as curate; in 1782 he was ordained priest, and appointed chaplain to the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir. His troubles were now over, and still through the goodness of Burke, he became a pluralist after the fashion of his time, exchanging two poor livings in Dorsetshire for two of greater value in the Vale of Belvoir. When the Duke of Rutland died in 1788, the duchess presented him with two rectories in Leicestershire. Crabbe had by this time abandoned poetry, his latest publication of note having been The Newspaper, 1785. Lord Thurlow had told him that he was as like Parson Adams as twelve to a dozen. He carried out the parallel: he married and settled down as a comfortable country clergyman, without any ambition, and it was more than twenty years before the world heard of him again. Meanwhile he had added to his clerical incumbencies, and in 1796 he had taken a mansion in Suffolk, Great Glenham Hall. Here he lived for nearly ten years, and then returned to one of his incumbencies, Muston, where he had not lived since 1792, in consequence of a warning from his bishop that he had grown too lax about parochial residence. The general awakening

of a public interest in poetry seems to have roused Crabbe in his seclusion. In 1807 he published the Poems, which he had written during his long retirement; they pleased, and in the same year Crabbe was encouraged to bring out a long poem, The Parish Register, parts of which had already been seen and admired by Fox. We are told that these passages were the last specimens of literature which "engaged and amused the capacious, the candid, the benevolent mind of this great man." The success of The Parish Register was beyond all probable expectation, and Crabbe found himself

suddenly famous at the age of fifty-three. He published The Borough, perhaps the best of his compositions, in 1810; Tales in Verse in 1812; and finally, in 1819, Tales of the Hall. During these years he had the gratification of seeing himself habitually named among the first poets of the age. When the sale of his works had already flagged a little, he was still able to dispose of his entire copyright for £3000, a sum which, according to an amusing story of Moore's, he characteristically carried loose in notes in his waistcoatpocket from London to Trowbridge in Wiltshire, of which parish he had been the rector since 1814. His celebrity, his genial simplicity, and the gentleness of his humour made Crabbe a very general favourite, and entertaining stories of his unworldly manners were He was commonly current.

now widely invited to great

houses, and enjoyed his fame, but never quite woke up from his bewilderment at finding himself a fashionable genius. Walter Scott esteemed and liked Crabbe, and had often urged him to come and stay with him in Edinburgh. He was, nevertheless, a little disconcerted to see the Suffolk poet quietly arrive, unannounced, in the very midst of the celebration of George IV.'s visit in August 1822, and take a dignified part in the proceedings. Crabbe, already an elderly man, was to live nearly ten years more. He died at Trowbridge on the 3rd of February 1832, having published nothing since the Tales of the Hall. His works and letters were given to the world in 1834 by his son, George Crabbe the younger.

FANNY'S DREAM.

They feel the calm delight, and thus proceed
Through the green lane,-then linger in the mead,-
Stray o'er the heath in all its purple bloom,-
And pluck the blossom where the wild bees hum;
Then through the broomy bound with ease they pass,
And press the sandy sheep-walk's slender grass,
Where dwarfish flowers among the gorse are spread,
And the lamb browses by the linnet's bed;

Then 'cross the bounding brook they make their way
O'er its rough bridge-and there behold the bay !-
The ocean smiling to the fervid sun-

The waves that faintly fall and slowly run

The ships at distance and the boats at hand;
And now they walk upon the seaside sand,
Counting the number and what kind they be,
Ships softly sinking in the sleepy sea:
Now arm in arm, now parted, they behold
The glitt'ring waters on the shingles roll'd:
The timid girls, half dreading their design,

Dip the small foot in the retarded brine,

And search for crimson weeds, which spreading flow,

Or lie like pictures on the sand below;

With all those bright red pebbles, that the sun
Through the small waves so softly shines upon;
And those live lucid jellies which the eye
Delights to trace as they swim glittering by:
Pearl-shells and rubied star-fish they admire,
And will arrange above the parlour-fire,-

Aldborough Town Hall
From a Drawing by C. Stanfield

Where the low porches, stretching from the door,
Gave some distinction in the days of yore,
Yet now neglected, more offend the eye,
By gloom and ruin, than the cottage by:
Places like these the noblest town endures,
The gayest palace has its sinks and sewers.
Here is no pavement, no inviting shop,
To give us shelter when compell'd to stop;
But plashy puddles stand along the way,
Fill'd by the rain of one tempestuous day;
And these so closely to the buildings run,
That you must ford them, for you cannot shun;
Though here and there convenient bricks are laid,
And door-side heaps afford their dubious aid.
Lo! yonder shed; observe its garden-ground,
With the low paling, form'd of wreck, around:
There dwells a fisher; if you view his boat,

With bed and barrel-'tis his house afloat;

Look at his house, where ropes, nets, blocks, abound,

Tar, pitch, and oakum-'tis his boat aground: