"The Longmans were accordingly called on, and, to Rogers' consternation, offered for the new work and the old only £1000, saying that this was the utmost they thought it prudent to give, considering the past sale of Crabbe's works. That, of course, put Rogers in a fix; but, like a keen man of business, the banker-poet at once put on his hat, and went to Albemarle Street, to talk about the printing of his own poem, and to close with Murray's offer for Crabbe.

"I am glad to find, Mr Murray,' said Rogers carelessly in the course of conversation, that you have settled with Mr Crabbe for his new poem'

"Murray answered cheerfully enough that he had, and this clinched the business. Rogers and Moore at once jumped into a cab, and drove off to tell poor Crabbe the news. They found

[THE Rev. George Crabbe was born on the Christmas Eve of 1754, at Aldborough, in Suffolk. His father, a collector of salt-duties, gave him a good education. When in his fourteenth year he was apprenticed to a surgeon, and for a time practised in Aldborough; but, abandoning a profession in which he had little success, he went to London as a literary adventurer, with three pounds in his pocket. He was at first unsuccessful with some poetical pieces which he wrote and offered for publication. He published a poetical epistle, "The Candidate," which met with a doubtful reception. Plunged in pecuniary difficulties, he wrote to the Premier, Lord North, and to Thurlow, asking help, but received no reply. At length, applying to Edmund Burke, the latter befriended him, and gave him prompt assistance, inviting him to his house, where he met Fox, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other cele-him moping dismally at home, thinking of the brities. The publication of "The Library" in 1781, conciliated the critics, and gained him the patronage of Lord Thurlow. Entering into sacred orders, he was licensed as curate to the rector of Aldborough. Burke again befriended him by procuring for him a situation as chaplain to the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle. He next spent four years in connection with two small livings in Dorsetshire, which were afterwards exchanged for two in the Vale of Belvoir. He married a young lady from Suffolk, the object of an early attachment. In 1814 the Duke of Rutland presented him to the living of Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, and thither he went to reside. A large portion of his salary of £800 a year was spent in charity. His clerical duties were faithfully discharged, and he turned his attention, especially in his later years, to the study of botany and geology. He died at Trowbridge, February 3, 1832. The names of his other principal poems are "The Village," "The Parish Register," "The Borough," and "Tales of the Hall." The following story is told regarding the negotiation with his publisher for the latter work:

"Crabbe's great work, his 'Tales,' consisting of 12,000 lines, were sent first of all to Murray, he offering £3000 for them if the poet would throw in the copyright of his first volume.

"Crabbe happened to be breakfasting with Rogers and Moore, in St James' Place, when he received Murray's note, and his first impulse was to accept it; and that was Moore's advice. But Rogers thought Murray ought to give £3000 for the new volume alone, and that the MS. should be offered to Longmans before Murray's letter was answered.

thousands he had lost through the diplomacy of the author of 'The Pleasures of Memory.' But the intelligence soon revived his spirits, and when Murray sent him the £3000, Crabbe almost leaped out of his skin. Rogers offered to take charge of the bills till they became due; but no-nothing would do but Crabbe must take them home with him, to show them to his son John.

"Won't copies do?' Rogers asked.

"No, not at all,' said the poet; 'I must show John the actual paper;' and placing the bills in his pocket-book, he started off, rubbing his hands with the glee of a girl over a new bonnet."

The following thoughtful and appreciative paper on his poems is adapted from Tait's Magazine.]

Although Crabbe has enjoyed no sparing meed of applause from many whose praise was of itself a passport to distinction, his admirers have been select rather than numerous. We think that he has not yet been honoured according to his deserts. At no period of his career, perhaps, can he have been justly called a popular writer: of late, he has certainly been undeservedly neglected. As regards the present generation of readers, this is easily accounted for. In aspect and manner, our poet belongs, in some degree, to a former age. The author, whose earlier efforts were fostered by Burke, whose tales had been criticised by Johnson, and had beguiled the sufferings of Fox [and Sir Walter Scott] during his last illness, was lost amidst the crowd of brilliant writers that rose to celebrity after the commencement of the present century. And

although he reappeared, after a long interval, with powers mellowed and confirmed by time, still he might, in some measure, be regarded as one of an obsolete school, by those who were engrossed by the dazzling productions of Scott, and Southey, and Byron. The captivations of a new vein of poetic imagery, rich, fanciful, and picturesque beyond precedent, would naturally divert the multitude of readers from an author

though he feared not to record what he knew,
he wrote no "scandalous chronicle" of human
nature. He strictly fulfilled the purpose so well
announced in his own words:

"Come then, fair Truth, and let me clearly see
The minds I paint, as they are seen in thee!
To me their merits and their faults impart.
Give me to say, 'Frail Being, such thou art;'
And clearly let me view the naked human heart."

Such being the author's object, it were unfair to
condemn the sobriety of his pictures, unless it
appear that he has omitted the beauties, or ex-
aggerated the defects of their original.

And what, then, was the real aspect of life as it presented itself to Crabbe's observation? A brief advertence to the circumstances of his

His

who still adhered to the older fashion, and who made no attempt to recommend the strict and often homely truth of his pictures, by splendour of colouring or variety of tone, by the romance of his fables, or the dignity of his personages. But the temporary excitement, whether of novelty or of fashion, has now subsided; and our author and his illustrious rivals are alike deni-history will best answer this question. He was zens of the past. The time is perhaps arrived, born in humble life, in an obscure fishing village, when we may better perceive and appreciate the situated on a stormy and sterile coast. relative truth of their labours. The opinion generally prevalent as to the char-youth was passed in indigence, surrounded by a rude and miserable race, depredators on land, acter of Crabbe's writings, would of itself prove smugglers at sea; and although some care had how little they have been consulted by the mass been bestowed on his education, it perhaps of readers. We believe that by the majority of served only to make him a solitary amongst the these he would be represented as the painter rugged companions with whom he was in perpar excellence of vice, indigence, and misery; petual contact. Thus he spent the first years the harsh anatomist of all unlovely diseases of of his life, in uncertain and repulsive labours, the moral and physical world, apt and diligent in the eager acquisition of such knowledge as he in his ungrateful occupation, but destitute of could snatch at intervals, observent, and restthe capacity to conceive or enjoy those fairer less, and impatient of a destiny to which he felt creations, which are Poetry's chosen offspring. himself superior. Still young, he set forthAnd yet how false and unjust will such a descrip- poor and friendless, unsupported save by hope, tion appear to those who are conversant with and the love of an amiable girl to whom he was our author; how much of unaffected beauty and betrothed-to try his fortune, as a literary generous feeling-what a store of genial, quiet adventurer, in the metropolis. Here he was humour and original reflection were here overfated to gain an early insight into the sadder looked! He was, indeed, too clear-sighted and features of life. For months he struggled with honest to substitute mere pleasant inventions misfortune in every shape: the sickness of hope for the real lineaments of life and nature, which deferred: neglect, disappointment, nay, the presence of actual want, were thoroughly experienced; and left an impression on his mind which no subsequent prosperity could efface. At length the generous notice of Burke made him friends, and raised him from misery to competence. He assumed the clerical profession-and after a short attendance on his noble patron, the Duke of Rutland, returned to converse, as a village curate, with the accidents and characters of humble life, and to observe in others the vicissitudes which he had himself practically learned to endure. In the height of his celebrity, when courted by the wealthy and the illustrious, these scenes were ever present to

he had closely inspected ere he ventured to portray. His pursuit of truth, it must be confessed, often led him amidst scenes which rarely attract the idler or the visionary: he came forth as the chronicler of common life; and how frequently is the web of daily existence chequered with sombre colours! Yet his eye could recognise beauty in the lowliest places: he was no wilful maligner of human nature; but resolutely gazed upon it in its rudest aspect, and with a master's hand transferred its lights and shadows to his canvas. Herein his merit resides-the secret of his genius lay in a perspicacity which allowed no detail of his subject to escape him, and a conscientiousness that refused to decorate it with foreign ornaments. In the scenes with which he was most conversant, the shade predominated over the sunshine: in his characters we see evil blended with, and at times quenching the good it was thus with the men by whom he was surrounded. It cannot be objected to him, that one circumstance of care or suffering is overcharged in the description; his delineation may be stern, but it is no caricature. Al

:

* It is delightful to read of the prompt benevolence with which this gifted man befriended an unknown youth, who brought no recommendation but his wretchedness and his talents. He had applied, but in vain, to many others high in station; and it is to Burke's liberal kindness that he owed his relief from actual starvation, and afterwards his introduction to that notice which assured him celebrity. Such incidents ought not to be lightly passed over-they honour human nature.

with feeling, and bespeak a familiar acquaintance with the object represented. Nothing is vague or inconsistent; his accessories are in the

reader. Our poet does not love to generalise, but executes his task with a careful and firm hand, producing his effect by a series of wellchosen details, each confirming the impression he seeks to convey. His choice of subjects may be objected to by the fastidious. True, he depicts no Tempè or Arcadia; his scenes are drawn from our work-day world, nor has he always selected even here the fairest portions. His acquaintance with the richer beauties of nature was not extensive. Yet he could discern a charm in the wild and barren places of the earth; and the boldness with which he has preserved their express features is in our eyes a merit of the highest order. With all our love for ideal beauty, we should have regretted his departure from a province peculiarly his own, in pursuit of embellishments belonging to another region. Each has its own place and season, and we deem it the highest excellence of Crabbe's descriptive passages, as works of art, that they are so perfectly sincere, so free from any intermixture of a character at variance with the appropriate features of the scene.

his mind; doubly impressed, by the force of early recollection, and by the experience gathered from his later duties. It is, therefore, not surprising that such were his chosen themes-finest keeping, and aid the conception of the for here he felt his knowledge and his power. And, far from exclaiming against the occasional harshness of his pictures, we rather marvel that one so rudely nurtured, and so sternly taught, should have attained the maturity of his powers, with a disposition so unspoiled as his-an eye so keenly alive to those better traits which redeem the characters of degradation, and so pure a love of nature as he preserved to the last. This may be ascribed, partly to a certain inexpertness, which disabled him, in boyhood, from partaking in the sports and occupations of his companions, and preserved him from the contagion of their habits, by estranging him from their pursuits; and still more, to the natural gift of a cheerful and buoyant temper, which sustained him amidst hardships that would have crushed or embittered one less happily endowed. His early attachment to a pure and excellent woman also contributed to keep his heart sound, and to animate his efforts; and thus, by a singular felicity in his fortune, after a hard struggle with obscure and degrading circumstances-with want, and anxiety, and neglect-he brought to the enjoyment of better days a mind more evenly poised and complete, according to the measure of its original endowments, than it generally falls to their lot to preserve who have passed through so severe an ordeal. The blessing was its own reward. The record of his long and honoured career, enlightened by benevolence, and intellectual activity, and domestic affections, presents us the image of a happiness which we feel to be as rare as it was, in this instance, well deserved. It is the accomplishment of that older poet's wish:

"Frui paratis, et valido mihi,

Latoë, dones:-et, precor, integrâ

Cum mente-nec turpem senectam
Degere, nec cithará carentem."

Crabbe was not deficient in imagination. The poem of Sir Eustace Grey would suffice to prove this were other proof wanting. But the power with which realities attracted his mind repressed the exercise of this faculty, and determined his preference for a class of composition in which his unrivalled accuracy of perception and his graphic vigour found entire occupation. It is as a descriptive poet that he sought to excel; by his success in this capacity he must be judged. It would be unreasonable to reproach him for the absence of qualities foreign to the object he pursued.

And if we examine his writings with the due advertence to their aim, which is a chief duty of honest criticism, how admirable will his success appear! What vivid truth in his landscapes! Every feature is brought out with precision-every touch tells; yet the effect, as a whole, is perfect. His epithets are pregnant

It is impossible, in an article like the present, to display his excellence in this department by adequate specimens. Those which we select, almost at random, are not offered as such; they can but be viewed as fragments, which lose much of their force by being separated from the context. Here is an autumn scene, the calm repose of which must, we think, be felt by every lover of nature. The turn at the close of the passage is a happy instance of our author's skill in combining his observation of external objects with the moral progress of his story.

"It was a fair and mild autumnal sky,

And earth's ripe treasures met the admiring eye,
As a rich beauty, when her bloom is lost,
Appears with more magnificence and cost;-
The wet and heavy grass, where feet had strayed,
Not yet erect, the wanderer's way betrayed;
Showers of the night had swelled the deepening rill;
The morning breeze had urged the quickening mill;
Assembled rooks had winged their seaward flight,
By the same passage to return at night,
While proudly o'er them hung the steady kite;
Then turned him back, and left the noisy throng,
Nor deigned to know them as he sailed along.
Long yellow leaves, from osiers, strewed around,
Choked the small stream and hushed the feeble sound;
While the dead foliage dropt from loftier trees,
Our squire beheld not with his wonted ease,
But to his own reflections made reply-
And said aloud-'Yes, doubtless, we must die!'"

The freshness and truth of Crabbe's sea views could only have been produced by one who, from early youth, had known the aspect of the deep in all its changes. He loved it as a familiar