verses with magnanimity. At last a distant relation leaves her his fortune; and she returns to the enjoyment of moderate wealth, and the exercise of charity-to all but her miserable husband. Broken by age and disease, he now begs the waste sand from the stone-cutters, and sells it on an ass through the streets : -"And from each trifling gift Made shift to live-and wretched was the shift." The unrelenting wife descries him creeping through the wet at this miserable employment; but still withholds all relief; in spite of the touching entreaties of her compassionate handmaid, whose nature is as kind and yielding as that of her mistress is hard and inflexible. Of all the pictures of mendicant poverty that have ever been brought forward in prose or verse-in charity sermons or seditious harangues—we know of none half so moving or complete-so powerful and so true -as is contained in the following passages:"A dreadful winter came; each day severe, Misty when mild, and icy-cold when clear; And still the humble dealer took his load, Returning slow, and shivering on the road: The Lady, still relentless, saw him come, And said, 'I wonder, has the Wretch a home!' A hut! a hovel! Then his fate appears To suit his crime.' Yes, Lady, not his years;No! nor his sufferings-nor that form decay'd.'The snow,' quoth Susan, falls upon his bedIt blows beside the thatch-it melts upon his head.' Tis weakness, child, for grieving guilt to feel.' 'Yes, but he never sees a wholesome meal; Through his bare dress appears his shrivel'd skin, And ill he fares without, and worse within: With that weak body, lame, diseas'd and slow, What cold, pain, peril, must the suff'rer know!Oh! how those flakes of snow their entrance win Through the poor rags, and keep the frost within! His very heart seems frozen as he goes, Leading that starv'd companion of his woes: He tried to pray-his lips, I saw them move, And he so turn'd his piteous looks above; But the fierce wind the willing heart opposed, And, ere he spoke, the lips in mis'ry clos'd! When reach'd his home, to what a cheerless fire And chilling bed will those cold limbs retire! Yet ragged, wretched as it is, that bed Takes half the space of his contracted shed; I saw the thorns beside the narrow grate, With straw collected in a putrid state: There will he, kneeling, strive the fire to raise, And that will warm him rather than the blaze; The sullen, smoky blaze, that cannot last One moment after his attempt is past: And I so warmly and so purely laid, To sink to rest!-indeed, I am afraid!'"' pp. 320-322. The Lady at last is moved, by this pleading pity, to send him a little relief; but has no sooner dismissed her delighted messenger, than she repents of her weakness, and begins to harden her heart again by the recollection of his misconduct. "Thus fix'd, she heard not her Attendant glide With soft slow step-till, standing by her side, The trembling Servant gasp'd for breath, and shed Relieving tears, then uttered-' He is dead!' "Dead!' said the startled Lady. Yes, he fell Close at the door where he was wont to dwell. There his sole friend, the Ass, was standing by, Half dead himself, to see his Master die.'"'" pp. 324, 325. "The Convert" is rather dull-though it teaches a lesson that may be useful in these fanatic times. John Dighton was bred a blackguard; and we have here a most lively and complete description of the items that go to the composition of that miscellaneous character; but being sore reduced by a long fever, falls into the hands of the Methodists, and becomes an exemplary convert. He is then set up by the congregation in a small stationer's adds' worldly literature to the evangelical shop; and, as he begins to thrive in business, tracts which composed his original stock in trade. This scandalises the brethren; and John, having no principles or knowledge, falls out with the sect, and can never settle in the creed of any other; and so lives perplexed and discontented-and dies in agitation and terror. "The Brothers" restores us again to human sympathies. The characters, though humble, are admirably drawn, and the baser of them, we fear, the most strikingly natural. An open-hearted generous sailor had a poor, sneaking, cunning, selfish brother, to whom he remitted all his prize-money, and gave all the arrears of his pay-receiving, in return, vehement professions of gratitude, and false protestations of regard. At last, the sailor is disabled in action, and discharged; just as his heartless brother has secured a small office by sycophancy, and made a prudent marriage with a congenial temper. He seeks the shelter of his brother's house as freely as he would have given it; and does not at first perceive the coldness of his reception.-But mortifications grow upon him day by day. His grog is expensive, and his pipe makes the wife sick; then his voice is so loud, and his manners so rough, that her friends cannot visit her if he appears at table! So he is banished by degrees to a garret; where he falls sick, and has no consolation but in the kindness of one of his nephews, a little boy, who administers to his comforts, and listens to his stories with a delighted attention. This too, however, is at last interdicted by his hard-hearted parents; and the boy is obliged to steal privately to his disconsolate uncle. One day his father catches him at his door; and, after beating him back, proceeds to deliver a severe rebuke to his brother for encouraging the child in disobedience-when he finds the unconscious culprit released by death from his despicable insults and reproaches! The great art of the story consists in the plausible excuses with which the ungrateful brother always contrives to cover his wickedness. This cannot be exemplified in an extract; but we shall give a few lines as a specimen. "Cold as he grew, still Isaac strove to show, By well-feign'd care, that cold he could not grow; And when he saw his Brother look distress'd, He strove some petty comforts to suggest; On his Wife solely their neglect to lay, And then t' excuse it as a woman's way; He too was chidden when her rules he broke, And then she sicken'd at the scent of smoke! [find George, though in doubt, was still consol'd to His Brother wishing to be reckon'd kind: That Isaac seem'd concern'd by his distress, [boy, Gave to his injur'd feelings some redress; His good kind friend would of his presents eat: "But, truly kind, the gentle Boy essay'd That one so old can be so ill advis'd,'" &c. pp. 370-371. ical readers will all be disposed to thank us. But considering Mr. Crabbe as, upon the whole, the most original writer who has ever come before us; and being at the same time of opinion, that his writings are destined to a still more extensive popularity than they have yet obtained, we could not resist the tempta tion of contributing our little aid to the fulfilment of that destiny. It is chiefly for the same reason that we have directed our remarks rather to the moral than the literary qualities of his works;-to his genius at least, rather than his taste-and to his thoughts rather than his figures of speech. By far the most remarkable thing in his writings, is the prodigious mass of original observations and reflections they every where exhibit; and that extraordinary power of conceiving and representing an imaginary object, whether physical or intellectual, with such a rich and complete accompaniment of circumstances and details, as few ordinary observers either perceive or remember in realities; a power which, though often greatly misapplied, must for ever entitle him to the very first rank among descriptive poets; and, when directed to worthy objects, to a rank inferior to none in the highest departments of poetry. In such an author, the attributes of style and versification may fairly be considered as secondary;—and yet, if we were to go minutely into them, they would afford room for a still longer chapter than that which we are now concluding. He cannot be said to be After the catastrophe, he endures deserved uniformly, or even generally, an elegant writer. remorse and anguish. The last tale in the volume, entitled, "The Learned Boy," is not the most interesting in the collection; though it is not in the least like what its title would lead us to expect. It is the history of a poor, weakly, paltry lad, who is sent up from the country to be a clerk in town; and learns by slow degrees to affect freethinking, and to practise dissipation. Upon the tidings of which happy conversion his father, a worthy old farmer, orders him down again to the country, where he harrows up the soul of his pious grandmother by his infidel prating and his father reforms him at once by burning his idle books, and treating him with a vigorous course of horsewhipping. There is some humour in this tale; and a great deal of nature and art, especially in the delineation of this slender clerk's gradual corruption and in the constant and constitutional predominance of weakness and folly, in all his vice and virtue-his piety and profaneness. We have thus gone through the better part of this volume with a degree of minuteness for which we are not sure that even our poet His style is not dignified-and neither very pure nor very easy. Its characters are force, precision, and familiarity;-now and then obscure-sometimes vulgar, and sometimes quaint. With a great deal of tenderness, and occasional fits of the sublime of despair and agony, there is want of habitual fire, and of his writings. He seems to recollect rather a tone of enthusiasm in the general tenor of than invent; and frequently brings forward his statements more in the temper of a cautious and conscientious witness, than of a fervent orator or impassioned spectator. His similes are almost all elaborate and ingenious, and rather seem to be furnished from the ef forts of a fanciful mind, than to be exhaled by the spontaneous ferment of a heated im agination. His versification again is frequently harsh and heavy, and his diction flat and prosaic-both seeming to be altogether neglected in his zeal for the accuracy and com plete rendering of his conceptions. These defects too are infinitely greater in his recent than in his early compositions. "The Village" is written, upon the whole, in a flowing and sonorous strain of versification; and "Sir Eustace Grey," though a late publication, is in general remarkably rich and melodious. It is chiefly in his narratives and curious descriptions that these faults of diction and measure are conspicuous. Where he is warmed by his subject, and becomes fairly indig nant or pathetic, his language is often very sweet and beautiful. He has no fixed system or manner of versification; but mixes several very opposite styles, as it were by accident, and not in general very judiciously;-what is peculiar to himself is not good, and strikes us as being both abrupt and affected. He may profit, if he pleases, by these hints -and, if he pleases, he may laugh at them. It is no great matter. If he will only write a few more Tales of the kind we have suggested at the beginning of this article, we shall engage for it that he shall have our praises-and those of more fastidious critics-whatever be the qualities of his style or versification. (July, 1819.) Tales of the Hall. By the Reverend GEORGE CRABBE. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 670. London: 1819. MR. CRABBE is the greatest mannerist, per- | but their combination-in such proportions at haps, of all our living poets; and it is rather least as occur in this instance-may safely be unfortunate that the most prominent features pronounced to be original. of his mannerism are not the most pleasing. The homely, quaint, and prosaic style-the flat, and often broken and jingling versification -the eternal full-lengths of low and worthless characters-with their accustomed garnishings of sly jokes and familiar moralising are all on the surface of his writings; and are almost unavoidably the things by which we are first reminded of him, when we take up any of his new productions. Yet they are not the things that truly constitute his peculiar manner; or give that character by which he will, and ought to be, remembered with future generations. It is plain enough, indeed, that these are things that will make nobody remembered and can never, therefore, be really characteristic of some of the most original and powerful poetry that the world has ever seen. Extraordinary, however, as this combination must appear, it does not seem very difficult to conceive in what way it may have arisen; and, so far from regarding it as a proof of singular humorousness, caprice, or affectation in the individual, we are rather inclined to hold that something approaching to it must be the natural result of a long habit of observation in a man of genius, possessed of that temper and disposition which is the usual accompaniment of such a habit; and that the same strangely compounded and apparently incongruous assemblage of themes and sentiments would be frequently produced under such circumstances-if authors had oftener the courage to write from their own impressions, and had less fear of the laugh or wonder of the more shallow and barren part of their readers. Mr. C., accordingly, has other gifts; and A great talent for observation, and a delight those not less peculiar or less strongly marked in the exercise of it-the power and the practice than the blemishes with which they are con- of dissecting and disentangling that subtle and trasted; an unrivalled and almost magical complicated tissue, of habit, and self-love, and power of observation, resulting in descriptions affection, which constitute human characterso true to nature as to strike us rather as seems to us, in all cases, to imply a contemtranscripts than imitations-an anatomy of plative, rather than an active disposition. It character and feeling not less exquisite and can only exist, indeed, where there is a good searching an occasional touch of matchless deal of social sympathy; for, without this, the tenderness and a deep and dreadful pathetic, occupation could excite no interest, and afford interspersed by fits, and strangely interwoven no satisfaction-but only such a measure and with the most minute and humble of his de- sort of sympathy as is gratified by being a tails. Add to all this the sure and profound spectator, and not an actor on the great theatre sagacity of the remarks with which he every of life-and leads its possessor rather to look now and then startles us in the midst of very with eagerness on the feats and the fortunes unambitious discussions;-and the weight and of others, than to take a share for himself in terseness of the maxims which he drops, like the game that is played before him. Some oracular responses, on occasions that give no stirring and vigorous spirits there are, no promise of such a revelation ;--and last, though doubt, in which this taste and talent is comnot least, that sweet and seldom sounded bined with a more thorough and effective chord of Lyrical inspiration, the lightest touch sympathy; and leads to the study of men's of which instantly charms away all harshness characters by an actual and hearty particifrom his numbers, and all lowness from his pation in their various passions and pursuits; themes and at once exalts him to a level-though it is to be remarked, that when such with the most energetic and inventive poets persons embody their observations in writing, of his age. they will generally be found to exhibit their These, we think, are the true characteristics characters in action, rather than to describe of the genius of this great writer; and it is in them in the abstract; and to let their various their mixture with the oddities and defects to personages disclose themselves and their pewhich we have already alluded, that the peculiarities, as it were spontaneously, and withculiarity of his manner seems to us substan- out help or preparation, in their ordinary tially to consist. The ingredients may all of conduct and speech-of all which we have a them be found, we suppose, in other writers; very splendid and striking example in the Tales of My Landlord, and the other pieces of that extraordinary writer. In the common case, however, a great observer, we believe, will be found, pretty certainly, to be a person of a shy and retiring temper-who does not mingle enough with the people he surveys, to be heated with their passions, or infected with their delusions and who has usually been led, indeed, to take up the office of a looker on, from some little infirmity of nerves, or weakness of spirits, which has unfitted him from playing a more active part on the busy scene of existence. "Bares the mean heart that lurks beneath a Star," originally mingled in his composition.-Yet satirists, we think, have not in general been ill-natured persons-and we are inclined rather to ascribe this limited and uncharitable application of their powers of observation to their love of fame and popularity,—which are well known to be best secured by successful ridicule or invective-or, quite as probably, indeed, to the narrowness and insufficiency of the observations themselves, and the imperfection of their talents for their due conduct and extension. It is certain, at least, we think, that the satirist makes use but of half Now, it is very obvious, we think, that this the discoveries of the observer; and teaches contemplative turn, and this alienation from but half-and the worser half-of the lessons the vulgar pursuits of mankind, must in the which may be deduced from his occupation. first place, produce a great contempt for most He puts down, indeed, the proud pretensions of those pursuits, and the objects they seek of the great and arrogant, and levels the vain to obtain a levelling of the factitious distinc- distinctions which human ambition has estions which human pride and vanity have established among the brethren of mankind;— tablished in the world, and a mingled scorn he and compassion for the lofty pretensions under which men so often disguise the nothingness of their chosen occupations. When the many--and destroys the illusions which would coloured scene of life, with all its petty agi- limit our sympathy to the forward and figur tations, its shifting pomps, and perishable ing persons of this world-the favourites of passions, is surveyed by one who does not fame and fortune. But the true result of obmix in its business, it is impossible that it servation should be, not so much to cast down should not appear a very pitiable and almost the proud, as to raise up the lowly;—not so ridiculous affair; or that the heart should not much to diminish our sympathy with the echo back the brief and emphatic exclama- powerful and renowned, as to extend it to all, tion of the mighty dramatist— who, in humbler conditions, have the same, or still higher claims on our esteem or affection. It is not surely the natural consequence of learning to judge truly of the characters of men, that we should despise or be indifferent about them all; and, though we have learned to see through the false glare which plays round the envied summits of existence, and to know how little dignity, or happiness, or worth, or wisdom, may sometimes belong to the possessors of power, and fortune, and learning and renown,-it does not follow, by any means, that we should look upon the whole of human life as a mere deceit and "Life's a poor player, Who frets and struts his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more!" Or the more sarcastic amplification of it, in Some livelier plaything gives our Youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite : Scarfs, garters, gold our riper years engage; And beads and prayer-books are the toys of Age Pleas'd with this bauble still as that before, Till tir'd we sleep-and Life's poor play is o'er!" This is the more solemn view of the sub-imposture, or think the concerns of our species ject-But the first fruits of observation are most commonly found to issue in Satire-the unmasking the vain pretenders to wisdom, and worth, and happiness, with whom society is infested, and holding up to the derision of mankind those meannesses of the great, those miseries of the fortunate, and those "Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise," which the eye of a dispassionate observer so quickly detects under the glittering exterior by which they would fain be disguised-and which bring pretty much to a level the intellect, and morals, and enjoyments, of the great mass of mankind. This misanthropic end has unquestionably been by far the most common result of a habit of observation; and that in which its effects have most generally terminated: - Yet we cannot bring ourselves to think that it is their just or natural termination. Something, no doubt, will depend on the temper of the individual, and the proportions in which the gall and the milk of human kindness have been fit subjects only for scorn and derision. Our promptitude to admire and to envy will indeed be corrected, our enthusiasm abated, and our distrust of appearances increased;-but the sympathies and affections of our nature will continue, and be better directed-our love of our kind will not be diminished-and our indulgence for their faults and follies, if we read our lesson aright, will be signally strengthen ed and confirmed. The true and proper effect, therefore, of a habit of observation, and a thorough and penetrating knowledge of human character, will be, not to extinguish our sympathy, but to extend it-to turn, no doubt, many a throb of admiration, and many a sigh of love into a smile of derision or of pity; but at the same time to reveal much that commands our homage and excites our affection, in those humble and unexplored regions of the heart and understanding, which never engage the attention of the incurious,-and to bring the whole family of mankind nearer to a level, by finding out latent merits as well as latent defects in all its members, and com pensating the flaws that are detected in the boasted ornaments of life, by bringing to light the richness and the lustre that sleep in the mines beneath its surface. fore us. We are afraid some of our readers may not at once perceive the application of these profound remarks to the subject immediately beBut there are others, we doubt not, who do not need to be told that they are intended to explain how Mr. Crabbe, and other persons with the same gift of observation, should so often busy themselves with what may be considered as low and vulgar characters; and, declining all dealings with heroes and heroic topics, should not only venture to seek for an interest in the concerns of ordinary mortals, but actually intersperse small pieces of ridicule with their undignified pathos, and endeavour to make their readers look on their books with the same mingled feelings of compassion and amusement, with which-unnatural as it may appear to the readers of poetry -they, and all judicious observers, actually look upon human life and human nature. This, we are persuaded, is the true key to the greater part of the peculiarities of the author before us; and though we have disserted upon it a little longer than was necessary, we really think it may enable our readers to comprehend him, and our remarks on him, something better than they could have done with out it. There is, as everybody must have felt, a strange mixture of satire and sympathy in all his productions-a great kindliness and compassion for the errors and sufferings of our poor human nature, but a strong distrust of its heroic virtues and high pretensions. His heart is always open to pity, and all the milder emotions-but there is little aspiration after the grand and sublime of character, nor very much encouragement for raptures and ecstasies of any description. These, he seems to think, are things rather too fine for the said poor human nature: and that, in our low and erring condition, it is a little ridiculous to pretend, either to very exalted and immaculate virtue, or very pure and exquisite happiness. He not only never meddles, therefore, with the delicate distresses and noble fires of the heroes and heroines of tragic and epic fable, but may generally be detected indulging in a lurking sneer at the pomp and vanity of all such superfine imaginations- and turning from them, to draw men in their true postures and dimensions, and with all the imperfections that actually belong to their condition :the prosperous and happy overshadowed with passing clouds of ennui, and disturbed with little flaws of bad humour and discontent the great and wise beset at times with strange weaknesses and meannesses and paltry vexations and even the most virtuous and enlightened falling far below the standard of poetical perfection-and stooping every now and then to paltry jealousies and prejudices or sinking into shabby sensualities--or meditating on their own excellence and importance, with a ludicrous and lamentable anxiety. This is one side of the picture; and charac terises sufficiently the satirical vein of our author: But the other is the most extensive and important. In rejecting the vulgar sources of interest in poetical narratives, and reducing his ideal persons to the standard of reality, Mr. C. does by no means seek to extinguish the sparks of human sympathy within us, or to throw any damp on the curiosity with which we naturally explore the characters of each other. On the contrary, he has afforded new and more wholesome food for all those propensities-and, by placing before us those details which our pride or fastidiousness is so apt to overlook, has disclosed, in all their truth and simplicity, the native and unadulterated workings of those affections which are at the bottom of all social interest, and are really rendered less touching by the exagge rations of more ambitious artists-while he exhibits, with admirable force and endless variety, all those combinations of passions and opinions, and all that cross-play of selfishness and vanity, and indolence and ambition, and habit and reason, which make up the intel-lectual character of individuals, and present to every one an instructive picture of his neighbour or himself. Seeing, by the perfection of his art, the master passions in their springs, and the high capacities in their rudiments-and having acquired the gift of tracing all the propensities and marking tendencies of our plastic nature, in their first slight indications, or even from the aspect of the disguises they so often assume, he does not need, in order to draw out his characters in all their life and distinctness, the vulgar demonstration of those striking and decided actions by which their maturity is proclaimed even to the careless and inattentive;—but delights to point out to his readers, the seeds or tender filaments of those talents and feelings which wait only for occasion and opportunity to burst out and astonish the worldand to accustom them to trace, in characters and actions apparently of the most ordinary description, the self-same attributes that, under other circumstances, would attract universal attention, and furnish themes for the most popular and impassioned descriptions. That he should not be guided in the choice of his subject by any regard to the rank or condition which his persons hold in society, may easily be imagined; and, with a view to the ends he aims at, might readily be forgiven. But we fear that his passion for observation, and the delight he takes in tracing out and analyzing all the little traits that indicate character, and all the little circumstances that influence it, have sometimes led him to be careless about his selection of the instances in which it was to be exhibited, or at least to select them upon principles very different from those which give them an interest in the eyes of ordinary readers. For the purpose of mere anatomy, beauty of form or complexion are things quite indifferent; and the physiologist, who examines plants only to study their internal structure, and to make himself master of the contrivances by which their various functions are performed, |