314

CRABBE

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DUTCH INTERIOR.

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.

"Now friendless, sick, and old, and wanting bread,
The first-born tears of fallen pride were shed
True, bitter tears; and yet that wounded pride,
Among the poor, for poor distinctions sigh'd!
Though now her tales were to her audience fit;
Though loud her tones, and vulgar grown her wit;
Though now her dress (but let me not explain
The piteous patchwork of the needy vain,
The flirtish form to coarse materials lent,
And one poor robe through fifty fashions sent);
Though all within was sad, without was mean ·
Still 'twas her wish, her comfort to be seen:
She would to plays on lowest terms resort,
Where once her box was to the beaux a court;

And, strange delight! to that same house, where she
Join'd in the dance, all gaiety and glee,

Now with the menials crowding to the wall,

She'd see, not share, the pleasures of the ball,

And with degraded vanity unfold,

How she too triumph'd in the years of old.-p. 209, 210.

The graphic powers of Mr. Crabbe, indeed, 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 the following description of a vast old boarded room or warehouse, which was let out, it seems, 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.

That window view!-oil'd paper and old glass
Stain the strong rays, which, though impeded, pass,
And give a dusty warmth to that huge room,
The conquer'd sunshine's melancholy gloom;
When all those western rays, without so bright,
Within become a ghastly glimm'ring light,
As pale and faint upon the floor they fall,
Or feebly gleam on the opposing wall:
That floor, once oak, now piec'd with fir unplan'd,
Or, where not piec'd, in places bor'd and stain'd;

VAGABOND'S BARRACK SEA FOG.

That wall once whiten'd, now an odious sight,
Stain'd with all hues, except its ancient white.
'Where'er the floor allows an even space,

Chalking and marks of various games have place;
Boys, without foresight, pleas'd in halters swing!
On a fix'd hook men cast a flying ring;

While gin and snuff their female neighbours share,
And the black beverage in the fractur'd ware.

"On swinging shelf are things incongruous stor'd
Scraps of their food- the cards and cribbage board
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'd—
All 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 some small consoling objects out.

"High hung at either end, and next the wall,

Two ancient mirrors show the forms of all."-p. 249-251.

The following picture of a calm sea fog is by the same powerful hand:

66

When all you see through densest fog is seen;
When you can hear the fishers near at hand
Distinctly speak, yet see not where they stand;
Or sometimes them and not their boats discern,
Or half-conceal'd some figure at the stern;
Boys who, on shore, to sea the pebble cast,
Will hear it strike against the viewless mast;
While the stern boatman growls his fierce disdain,
At whom he knows not, whom he threats in vain.
"'Tis pleasant then to view the nets float past,
Net after net till you have seen the last;
And as you wait till all beyond you slip,
A boat comes gliding from an anchor'd ship,
Breaking the silence with the dipping oar,
And their own tones, as labouring for the shore;

Those measur'd tones with which the scene agree,
And give a sadness to serenity."—p. 123, 124.

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 half-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 way,
Which on each side rose swelling, and below
The dark warm flood ran silently and slow;
There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide,
There hang his head, and view the lazy tide
In its hot slimy channel slowly guide;
Where the small eels that left the deeper way
For the warm shore, within the shallows play;
Where gaping muscles, left upon the mud,
Slope their slow passage to the fallen flood; -
Here dull and hopeless he'd lie down and trace
How sidelong crabs had scrawl'd their crooked race;
Or sadly listen to the tuneless cry

Of fishing Gull or clanging Golden Eye."-p. 305, 306.

Under the head of Amusements, we have a spirited account of the danger and escape of a party of pleasure, who landed, in a fine evening, on a low sandy island, which was covered with the tide at high water, and were 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.

PERIL AND DELIVERANCE

"Alas! no shout the distant land can reach,
Nor eye behold them from the foggy beach :
Again they join in one loud powerful cry,
They 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!
(Seamen were these who in their ship perceiv'd
The drifted boat, and thus her crew reliev'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 welcome ark;
While the most giddy, as they reach the shore,

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Think of their danger, and their God adore."—p. 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 sone 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

318 CRABBE'S BOROUGH

-FAULTS OF THE POEM.

English universities. But we have no longer left room for any considerable extracts; though we should have wished to lay before our readers some part of the picture of the sectaries - the description of the inns - the strolling players and the clubs. The poor man's club, which partakes of the nature of a friendly society, is described with that good-hearted indulgence which marks all Mr. Crabbe's writings.

"The printed rules he guards in painted frame,

And shows his children where to read his name," &c,

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, Amusements, 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