She came with smiles the hour of pain to cheer; One day he lighter seem'd, and they forgot She plac'd a decent stone his grave above, She would have griev'd, had friends presum'd to spare The least assistance-'twas her proper care. The hours of innocence ;-the timid look "Yes! all are with him now, and all the while pass, And press the sandy sheep-walk's slender grass. 'Here will she come, and on the grave will sit, Now arm in arm, now parted, they behold any There is a passage in the same tone, in the letter on Prisons. It describes the dream of a felon under sentence of death; and though the exquisite accuracy and beauty of the landscape painting are such as must have recommended it to notice in poetry of order, it seems to us to derive an uspeakable charm from the lowly simplicity and humble content of the characters-at least we cannot conceive any walk of ladies and gentlemen that should furnish out so sweet a picture as terminates the following extract. It is only doing Mr. Crabbe justice to present along with it a part of the dark foreground which he has drawn, in the waking existence of the poor dreamer. "When first I came "Yes! e'en in sleep th' impressions all remain; The glitt'ring waters on the shingles roli'd: If these extracts do not make the reader feel how deep and peculiar an interest may "Your plan I love not with a number you Those gates and locks, and all those signs of power "Alas! their sorrows in their boscms dwell, They own there's granted all such place can give, "Is not the matron there, to whom the son "Widows are here, who in their huts were left, To gain the plaud ts of the knowing few, "Cruel he was not.-If he left his wife, 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 char weep-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 every change of circumstances. The concluding view is as follows. Who can, when here, the social neighbour 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. "Now friendless, sick, and old, and wanting bread, pp. 209, 210. 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 The graphic powers of Mr. Crabbe, indeed, hand; and affords a good specimen of that are too frequently wasted on unworthy sub sententious and antithetical manner by which|jects. There is not, perhaps, in all English Mr. Crabbe sometimes reminds us of the style and versification of Pope. "Blaney, a wealthy heir at twenty-one, He found his ruin in the common road; An horse, so valued, that a duke was shy: poetry a more complete and highly finished "That window view!-oil'd paper and old glass When all those western rays, without so bright, "Where'er the floor allows an even space, The dark warm flood ran silently and slow; 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'dAll 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; 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 haif-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 covered with the tide at high water, and were evening, on a low sandy island, which was 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 welcoine 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 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. That woe could wish, or vanity devise.” "Sick without pity, sorrowing without hope." 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, Amuseinents, 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." On the other hand, he appears to us to be frequently misled by Darwin into a sort of mock-heroic magnificence, upon ordinary oc casions. 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 "Spread the warm pungence of o'erboiling tar." 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 they do not always make a very harmonious the tame heaviness and vulgarity of such combination, are better, at all events, than verses as the following: "As soon Could he have thought gold issued from the moon." Nor find one creed to their conceptions fit- Of the sudden, narsh turns, and broken con ciseness 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 "We term it free and easy; and yet we We had more remarks to make upon the taste and diction of this author; and had noted several other little blemishes, which we meant o have pointed out for his correction: but we mirable account in maintain.ng the inte.er have no longer room for such minute criticism and enhancing the probability, of an extended -from which, indeed, neither the author nor train of adventures. At present, it is impos the reader would be likely to derive any great sible not to regret, that so much genius should benefit. We take our leave of Mr. Crabbe, be wasted in making us perfectly acquainted therefore, by expressing our hopes that, since with individuals, of whom we are to know it is proved that he can write fast, he will not nothing but the characters. In such a poem, allow his powers to languish for want of exer- however, Mr. Crabbe must entirely lay aside tise; and that we shall soon see him again the sarcastic and jocose style to which he has tepaying the public approbation, by entitling rather too great a propensity; but which we himself to a still larger share of it. An author know, from what he has done in Sir Eustace generally knows his own forte so much better Grey, that he can, when he pleases, entirely than any of his readers, that it is commonly relinquish. That very powerful and original a very foolish kind of presumption to offer performance, indeed, the chief fault of which any advice as to the direction of his efforts; is, to be set too thick with images-to be too but we own we have a very strong desire to strong and undiluted, in short, for the diges see Mr. Crabbe apply his great powers to the tion of common readers-makes us regret, construction of some interesting and connected that its author should ever have stopped to be story. He has great talents for narration; and trifling and ingenious or condescended to that unrivalled gift in the delineation of char- tickle the imaginations of his readers, instead acter, which is now used only for the creation of touching the higher passions of their na of detached portraits, might be turned to ad-ture. (November, 1812.) Tales. By the Reverend GEORGE CRABBE. 8vo. pp. 398. London: 1812. 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. 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 If we were required to make a comparative liked a little more of the deep and tragical estimate of the merits of the present publica passions; of those passions which exalt and tion, or to point out the shades of difference overwhelm the soul-to whose stormy seat by which it is distinguished from those that the modern muses can so rarely raise their have gone before it, we should say that there flight-and which he has wielded with such are a greater number of instances on which terrific force in his Sir Eustace Grey, and the he has combined the natural language and Gipsy Woman. What we wanted, in short, manners of humble life with the energy of were tales something in the style of those true passion, and the beauty of generous two singular compositions-with less jocu- affection;-in which he has traced out the larity than prevails in the rest of his writings course of those rich and lovely veins in the -rather more incidents-and rather fewer rude and unpolished masses that lie at the details. 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 to "The Borough," or "The Parish Register." The same tone-the same subjects-the same style, measure, and versiLication;-the same 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 those finer feelings, and the stirrings of those loftier emotions which the partiality of other poets had attributed, almost exclusively, to actors on a higher scene. 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 in tended: 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 |