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324 CRABBE'S TALES- -MOST RELISHED BY MIDDLING CLASS.

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the emotions which he has suggested. sion indeed is of all ranks and conditions; and its language and external indications nearly the same in all. Like highly rectified spirit, it blazes and inflames with equal force and brightness, from whatever materials it is extracted. But all the softer and kindlier affections, all the social anxieties that mix with our daily hopes, and endear our homes, and colour our existence, wear a different livery, and are written in a different character in almost every great caste or division of society; and the heart is warmed, and the spirit touched by their delineation, exactly in the proportion in which we are familiar with the types by which they are represented. — When Burns, in his better days, walked out in a fine summer morning with Dugald Stewart, and the latter observed to him what a beauty the scattered cottages, with their white walls and curling smoke shining in the silent sun, imparted to the landscape, the peasant poet answered, that he felt that beauty ten times more strongly than his companion could do; and that it was necessary to be a cottager to know what pure and tranquil pleasures often nestled below those lowly roofs, or to read, in their external appearance, the signs of so many heartfelt and long-remembered enjoyments. In the same way, the humble and patient hopes-the depressing embarrassments the little mortifications- the slender triumphs, and strange temptations which arise in middling life, and are the theme of Mr. Crabbe's finest and most touching representations -can only be guessed at by those who glitter in the higher walks of existence; while they must raise many a tumultuous throb and many a fond recollection in the breasts of those to whom they reflect so truly the image of their own estate, and reveal so clearly the secrets of their habitual sensations.

We cannot help thinking, therefore, that though such writings as are now before us must give great pleasure to all persons of taste and sensibility, they will give by far the greatest pleasure to those whose condition is least remote from that of the beings with whom they are occupied. But we think also, that it was wise and meritorious

BEST AFFECTIONS NOT IN HIGHEST STATIONS. 325

in Mr. Crabbe to occupy himself with such beings. In this country, there probably are not less than 300,000 persons who read for amusement or instruction, among the middling classes of society. In the higher classes, there are not as many as 30,000. It is easy to see therefore which a poet should choose to please, for his own glory and emolument, and which he should wish to delight and amend, out of mere philanthropy. The fact too we believe is, that a great part of the larger body are to the full as well educated and as high-minded as the smaller; and, though their taste may not be so correct and fastidious, we are persuaded that their sensibility is greater. The misfortune is, to be sure, that they are extremely apt to affect the taste of their superiors, and to counterfeit even that absurd disdain of which they are themselves the objects; and that poets have generally thought it safest to invest their interesting characters with all the trappings of splendid fortune and high station, chiefly because those who know least about such matters think it unworthy to sympathise in the adventures of those who are without them! For our own parts, however, we are quite positive, not only that persons in middling life would naturally be most touched with the emotions that belong to their own condition, but that those emotions are in themselves the most powerful, and consequently the best fitted for poetical or pathetic representation. Even with regard to the heroic and ambitious passions, as the vista is longer, which leads from humble privacy to the natural objects of such passions; so, the career is likely to be more impetuous, and its outset more marked by striking and contrasted emotions:- and as to all the more tender and less turbulent affections, upon which the beauty of the pathetic is altogether dependent, we apprehend it to be quite manifest, that their proper soil and nidus is the privacy and simplicity of humble life; that their very

* By the middling classes we mean almost all those who are below the sphere of what is called fashionable or public life, and who do not aim at distinction or notoriety beyond the circle of their equals in fortune and situation.

326

CRABBE'S TALES THE PARTING HOUR.

elements are dissipated by the variety of objects that move for ever in the world of fashion; and their essence tainted by the cares and vanities that are diffused in the atmosphere of that lofty region. But we are wandering into a long dissertation, instead of making our readers acquainted with the book before us. The most satisfactory thing we can do, we believe, is to give them a plain account of its contents, with such quotations and remarks as may occur to us as we proceed.

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The volume contains twenty-one tales; -- the first of which is called "The Dumb Orators.' This is not one of the most engaging; and is not judiciously placed at the portal, to tempt hesitating readers to go forward. The second, however, entitled "The Parting Hour," is of a far higher character, and contains some passages of great beauty and pathos. The story is simply that of a youth and a maiden in humble life, who had loved each other from their childhood, but were too poor to marry. The youth goes to the West Indies to push his fortune; but is captured by the Spaniards and carried to Mexico, where, in the course of time, though still sighing for his first love, he marries a Spanish girl, and lives twenty years with her and his children he is then impressed, and carried round the world for twenty years longer; and is at last moved by an irresistible impulse, when old and shattered and lonely, to seek his native town, and the scene of his youthful vows. He comes and finds his Judith like himself in a state of widowhood, but still brooding, like himself, over the memory of their early love. She had waited twelve anxious years without tidings of him, and then married: and now when all passion, and fuel for passion, is extinguished within them, the memory of their young attachment endears them to each other, and they still cling together in sad and subdued affection, to the exclusion of all the rest of the world. The history of the growth and maturity of their innocent love is beautifully given: but we pass on to the scene of their parting.

"All things prepar'd, on the expected day Was seen the vessel anchor'd in the bay.

ANCIENT MARINER'S RETURN.

From her would seamen in the evening come,
To take th' advent'rous Allen from his home;
With his own friends the final day he pass'd,
And every painful hour, except the last.
The grieving Father urg'd the cheerful glass,
To make the moments with less sorrow pass;
Intent the Mother look'd upon her son,

And wish'd th' assent withdrawn, the deed undone;
The younger Sister, as he took his way,

Hung on his coat, and begg'd for more delay;

But his own Judith call'd him to the shore,

Whom he must meet- for they might meet no more!
And there he found her-faithful, mournful, true,
Weeping and waiting for a last adieu!

-

- p. 29.

327

The ebbing tide had left the sand, and there Mov'd with slow steps the melancholy pair: Sweet were the painful moments — but how sweet, And without pain, when they again should meet! The sad and long-delayed return of this ardent adventurer is described in a tone of genuine pathos, and in some places with such truth and force of colouring, as to outdo the efforts of the first dramatic representation.

"But when return'd the Youth? the Youth no more
Return'd exulting to his native shore!

But forty years were past; and then there came
A worn-out man, with wither'd limbs and lame!
Yes! old and griev'd, and trembling with decay,
Was Allen landing in his native bay:

In an autumnal eve he left the beach,
In such an eve he chanc'd the port to reach :
He was alone; he press'd the very place
Of the sad parting, of the last embrace:
There stood his parents, there retir'd the Maid,
So fond, so tender, and so much afraid;

And on that spot, through many a year, his mind
Turn'd mournful back, half sinking, half resign'd.
"No one was present; of its crew bereft,

A single boat was in the billows left;
Sent from some anchor'd vessel in the bay,
At the returning tide to sail away :

O'er the black stern the moonlight softly play'd,
The loosen'd foresail flapping in the shade:
All silent else on shore; but from the town
A drowsy peal of distant bells came down :
From the tall houses, here and there, a light
Serv'd some confus'd remembrance to excite :
There,' he observ'd, and new emotions felt,

Was my first home and yonder Judith dwelt,' &c.

328 CRABBE'S TALES

MEETING OF LONG-PARTED LOVERS.

A swarthy matron he beheld, and thought
She might unfold the very truths he sought;
Confus'd and trembling, he the dame address'd:
The Booths! yet live they?' pausing and oppress'd :
Then spake again:- Is there no ancient man,
David his name? - assist me, if you can.

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Flemings there were! and Judith! doth she live?'
The woman gaz'd, nor could an answer give;

Yet wond'ring stood, and all were silent by,

Feeling a strange and solemn sympathy."-p. 31, 32.
The meeting of the lovers is briefly told.
"But now a Widow, in a village near,
Chanc'd of the melancholy man to hear:
Old as she was, to Judith's bosom came
Some strong emotions at the well-known name;
He was her much-lov'd Allen! she had stay'd
Ten troubled years, a sad afflicted maid," &c.
"The once-fond Lovers met: Not grief nor age,
Sickness or pain, their hearts could disengage:
Each had immediate confidence; a friend
Both now beheld, on whom they might depend:
Now is there one to whom I can express
My nature's weakness, and my soul's distress.'

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There is something sweet and touching, and in a higher vein of poetry, in the story which he tells to Judith of all his adventures, and of those other ties, of which it still wrings her bosom to hear him speak.— We can afford but one little extract.

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There, hopeless ever to escape the land,
He to a Spanish maiden gave his hand;
In cottage shelter'd from the blaze of day,
He saw his happy infants round him play;
Where summer shadows made by lofty trees,
Wav'd o'er his seat, and sooth'd his reveries;
E'en then he thought of England, nor could sigh,
But his fond Isabel demanded Why?'

Griev'd by the story, she the sigh repaid,

And wept in pity for the English Maid."- p. 35, 36.

The close is extremely beautiful, and leaves upon the mind just that impression of sadness which is both salutary and delightful, because it is akin to pity, and mingled with admiration and esteem.

"Thus silent, musing through the day, he sees
His children sporting by those lofty trees,
Their mother singing in the shady scene

Where the fresh springs burst o'er the lively green;

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