music held over him, may be realized from the fact that he once wrote the greater part of a poem in a London concert-room, to keep himself awake. The tone of his mind is revealed by the manner in which he wooed the muse. From his own artless letters we cannot but discover that much of his verse was produced by a mechanical process. His best metaphors, he tells us, were inserted after the tale itself was completed. He confesses his surprise that, in two or three instances, he was much affected by what he wrote, which is proof enough of the uninspired spirit in which many of his compositions were conceived. "I rhyme at Hampstead with a great deal of facility," says one of his letters. Accordingly his writings fall much below the works "produced too slowly ever to decay." In fact, with all his peculiar merits, Crabbe was often a mere rhymer, and the cultivated lover of poetry, who feels a delicate reverence for its more perfect models, will find many of his voluminous heroics unimpressive and tedious. But interwoven with these, is many a picture of human misery, many a display of coarse passion and unmitigated grief, of delusive joy and haggard want, of vulgar selfishness and moral truth, that awaken sympathy even to pain, and win admiration for the masterly execution of the artist. Much of the poetry of Crabbe, however, is of such a character that we can conceive of its being written in almost any quantity. He began to write not so much from impulse alone, as motives of self-improvement and interest. When his situation was comfortable, he ceased versifying for a long interval, and resumed the occupation because he was encouraged to do so by the support of the public. Only occasionally, and in particular respects, does he excite wonder. The form and spirit of his works are seldom exalted above ordinary associations. Hence they are more easily imitated, and in the "Re

jected Addresses," one of the closest parodies is that of Crabbe. The department he originally chose was almost uninvaded, and he was singularly fitted to occupy it with success. In addition to his graphic ability, and the studied fidelity of his portraiture, which were his great intellectual advantages, there were others arising from the warmth and excellence of his heart. He sympathized enough with human nature to understand its weaknesses and wants. His pathos is sometimes inimitable; and superadded to these rare qualifications, we must allow him a felicity of diction, a fluency and propriety in the use of language, which, if it made him sometimes diffuse, at others gave a remarkable freedom and point to his verses.

Illustrations of these qualities abound in Crabbe's writings. His similes convey a good idea of his prevailing tendency to avail himself of prosaic associations, which in ordinary hands, would utterly fail of their intended effect:

For all that honour brings against the force

Of headlong passion, aids its rapid course;
Its slight resistance but provokes the fire,

As wood-work stops the flame and then convevs it higher,

As various colours in a painted ball

While it has rest, are seen distinctly all;
Till whirled around by some exterior force,
They all are blended in the rapid course;
So in repose and not by passion swayed,
We saw the difference by their habits made;

But tried by strong emotions, they became

Filled with one love, and were in heart, the same.

The following are specimens of his homely minute

ness.

cold and wet and driving with the tide, Beats his weak arms against his tarry side.

*An oysterman.

CRABBE.

Hence one his favourite habitation gets,

The brick-floored parlour which the butcher lets,
Where, through his single light, he may regard
The various business of a common yard,
Bounded by backs of buildings formed of clay,
By stables, sties, coops, et cetera.

A BAR ROOM.

Here port in bottles stood, a well-stained row,
Drawn for the evening from the pipe below;
Three powerful spirits filled a parted case,
Some cordial bottles stood in secret place;
Fair acid fruits in nets above were seen,
Her plate was splendid and her glasses clean,
Basins and bowls were ready on the stand,
And measures clattered in her powerful hand.
Here curling fumes in lazy wreaths arise,
And prosing topers rub their winking eyes.

COCK-FIGHTING.

Here the poor bird th' inhuman cocker brings,
Arms his hard heel and clips his golden wings;
With spicy food th' impatient spirit feeds,

And shouts and curses as the battle bleeds.
Struck through the brain, deprived of both his eyes,
The vanquished bird must combat till he dies,
Must faintly peck at his victorious foe,

And reel and stagger at each feeble blow;

When fallen, the savage grasps his dabbled plumes,
His blood-stained arms for other deaths assumes,
And damns the craven fowl that lost his stake,
And only bled and perished for his sake.

Fresh were his features, his attire was new,
Clean was his linen, and his jacket blue,
Of finest jean his trowsers tight and trim,
Brushed the large buckle at the silver rim.

Twin infants then appear, a girl, a boy,
The o'erflowing cup of Gerard Ablett's joy;
One had I named in every year that past,
Since Gerard wed,-and twins behold at last!

131

Ah! much I envy thee thy boys who ride
On poplar branch, and canter at thy side;

And girls whose cheeks thy chin's fierce fondness know,
And with fresh beauty at the contact glow.

His fondness for antitheses is often exemplified:

The easy followers in the female train,
Led without love, and captives without chain.

Opposed to these we have a prouder kind,
Rash without heat and without raptures blind.

Hour after hour, men thus contending sit,
Grave without sense, and pointed without wit

Gained without skill, without inquiry bought,
Lost without love, and borrowed without thought.

It is amusing, with the old complaints of the indefiniteness of poetry fresh in the mind, to encounter such literal rhyming as the following,-a sailor is addressing his recreant mistress:

Nay, speak at once, and Dinah, let me know,

Means't thou to take me, now I'm wreck'd, in tow?

Be fair, nor longer keep me in the dark,

Am I forsaken for a trimmer spark?

Grave Jonas Kindred, Sybil Kindred's sire,

Was six feet high, and look'd six inches higher.

A tender, timid maid, who knew not how
To pass a pig-sty, or to face a cow.

Where one huge, wooden bowl before them stood,
Filled with huge balls of farinaceous food,
With bacon most saline, where never lean
Beneath the brown and bristly rind was seen.

As a male turkey straggling on the green,
When by fierce harriers, terriers, mongrels seen,
He feels the insults of the merry train,
And moves aside though filled by much disdain;
But when that turkey at his own barn-door,
Sees one poor straying puppy and no more,

(A foolish puppy who had left the pack,

Thoughtless what foe was threat'ning at his back,)
He moves about, as ships prepared to sail,
He hoists his proud rotundity of tail,

The half-sealed eyes and changeful neck he shows,
Where in its quickening colours vengeance glows;
From red to blue the pendant wattle turn,
Blue mixed with red as matches when they burn,
And thus the intruding snarler to oppose,
Urged by enkindling wrath, he gobbling goes.
No image appears too humble for Crabbe:

For these occasions forth his knowledge sprung,
As mustard quickens on a bed of dung.

When his graphic power is applied to a different order of subjects and accompanied with more sentiment, we behold the legitimate evidences of his title to the name of poet :

Then how serene! when in your favourite room,
Gales from your jasmins soothe the evening gloom,
When from your upland paddock you look down
And just perceive the smoke which hides the town;
When weary peasants at the close of day,
Walk to their cots and part upon the way;

When cattle slowly cross the shallow brook,

And shepherds pen their folds and rest upon their crook.

Their's is yon house that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours flagging play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;
There children dwell who know no parents care,
Parents, who know no childrens' love, dwell there,
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forsaken wives and mothers never wed;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,

And crippled age with more than childhood's fears,
The lame, the blind, and far the happiest they,
The moping idiot and the madman gay.