That still reminds them how he'd dance and play, Ere sent untimely to the Convicts' 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 fried—
All used 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 placed by vanity's unwearied hands;
For here she lives, e'en here she looks about,
To find some small consoling objects out:
Nor heed these Spartan dames their house, not sit
'Mid cares domestic, - they nor sew nor knit;
But of their fate discourse, their ways,
their wars,
With arm'd authorities, their 'scapes and scars:
These lead to present evils, and a cup.
If fortune grant it, winds description up.

High hung up at either end, and next the wall, Two ancient mirrors show the forms of all,

In all their force ;-these aid them in their dress,
But with the good, the evils too express,
Doubling each look of care, each token of distress.(1)

(1) [The graphic powers of Mr. Crabbe 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 this description of

a vast old boarded room or warehouse, which was let out, in the Borough, as a kind of undivided lodging, for beggars and vagabonds of every description. No Dutch painter ever presented an interior more distinctly to the eye, or ever gave half such a group to the imagination. - JEFFREY.]

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER XIX.

THE POOR OF THE BOROUGH.

THE PARISH-CLERK.

Nam dives qui fieri vult,

Et citò vult fieri; sed quæ reverentia legum,
Quis metus, aut pudor est unquam properantis avari?

Juv. Sat. xiv. (1)

Nocte brevem si fortè indulsit cura soporem,
Et toto versata thoro jam membra quiescunt,
Continuò templum et violati Numinis aras,
Et quod præcipuis mentem sudoribus urget,
Te videt in somnis; tua sacra et major imago
Humanâ turbat pavidum, cogitque fateri. —Juv. Sat. xiii. (2)

¡ (1)

(2)

[ he who covets wealth, disdains to wait :
Law threatens, conscience calls, yet on he hies,
And this he silences, and that defies.]

[At night, should sleep his harass'd limbs compose,
And steal him one short moment from his woes,
Then dreams invade; sudden, before his eyes,
The violated fane and altar rise;

And (what disturbs him most) your injured shade,

In more than mortal majesty array'd,

Frowns on the wretch, alarms his treach'rous rest,

And wrings the dreadful secret from his breast, GIFFORD.]

The Parish-Clerk began his Duties with the late Vicar, a grave and austere Man; one fully orthodox; a Detecter and Opposer of the Wiles of Satan - His Opinion of his own Fortitude The more frail offended by these Professions - His good Advice gives further Provocation - They invent Stratagems to overcome his Virtue - His Triumph - He is yet not invulnerable: is assaulted by Fear of Want, and Avarice - He gradually yields to the Seduction He reasons with himself, and is persuaded— He offends, but with Terror; repeats his Offence; grows familiar with Crime: is detected - His Sufferings and Death.

301

THE BCROUGH.

LETTER XIX.

THE PARISH-CLERK.

WITH Our late Vicar, and his age the same,
His Clerk, hight Jachin, to his office came;
The like slow speech was his, the like tall slender

frame:

But Jachin was the gravest man on ground,
And heard his master's jokes with look profound;
For worldly wealth this man of letters sigh'd,
And had a sprinkling of the spirit's pride:
But he was sober, chaste, devout, and just,
One whom his neighbours could believe and trust:
Of none suspected, neither man nor maid
By him were wrong'd, or were of him afraid.
There was indeed a frown, a trick of state
In Jachin;-formal was his air and gait:
But if he seem'd more solemn and less kind,
Than some light men to light affairs confined,
Still 't was allow'd that he should so behave
As in high seat, and be severely grave.