334 CRABBE'S TALES THE LOVER'S JOURNEY.

tains. A lover takes a long ride to see his mistress; and passing, in full hope and joy, through a barren and fenny country, finds beauty in every thing. Being put out of humour, however, by missing the lady at the end of this stage, he proceeds through a lovely landscape, and finds every thing ugly and disagreeable. At last he meets his fair one-is reconciled — and returns along with her; when the landscape presents neither beauty nor deformity; and excites no emotion whatever in a mind engrossed with more lively sensations. There is nothing in this volume, or perhaps in any part of Mr. Crabbe's writings, more exquisite than some of the descriptions in this story. The following, though by no means the best, is too characteristic of the author to be omitted:

"First o'er a barren heath beside the coast Orlando rode, and joy began to boast.

66 6

This neat low gorse,' said he, with golden bloom,
Delights each sense, is beauty, is perfume;
And this gay ling, with all its purple flowers,
A man at leisure might admire for hours;
This green-fring'd cup-moss has a scarlet tip,
That yields to nothing but my Laura's lip;
And then how fine this herbage! men may say
A heath is barren; nothing is so gay.'

"Onward he went, and fiercer grew the heat,
Dust rose in clouds beneath the horse's feet;
For now he pass'd through lanes of burning sand,
Bounds to thin crops or yet uncultur'd land;
Where the dark poppy flourish'd on the dry
And sterile soil, and mock'd the thin-set rye.
The Lover rode, as hasty lovers ride,

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And reach'd a common pasture wild and wide;
Small black-legg'd sheep devour with hunger keen
The meager herbage; fleshless, lank and lean:
He saw some scatter'd hovels; turf was pil'd
In square brown stacks; a prospect bleak and wild!
A mill, indeed, was in the centre found,
With short sear herbage withering all around;
A smith's black shed oppos'd a wright's long shop,
And join'd an inn where humble travellers stop."

p. 176, 177.

The features of the fine country are less perfectly drawn: But what, indeed, could be made of the vulgar fine country of England? If Mr. Crabbe had had the good fortune to live among our Highland hills, and

lakes, and upland woods—our living floods sweeping through forests of pine-our lonely vales and rough copse-covered cliffs; what a delicious picture would his unrivalled powers have enabled him to give to the world! -But we have no right to complain, while we have such pictures as this of a group of Gipsies. It is evidently finished con amore; and does appear to us to be absolutely perfect, both in its moral and its physical expression.

"Again the country was enclos'd; a wide
And sandy road has banks on either side;
Where, lo! a hollow on the left appear'd,
And there a Gipsy-tribe their tent had rear'd ;
'Twas open spread, to catch the morning sun,
And they had now their early meal begun,
When two brown Boys just left their grassy seat,
The early Trav'ller with their prayers to greet:
While yet Orlando held his pence in hand,
He saw their sister on her duty stand;
Some twelve years old, demure, affected, sly,
Prepar'd the force of early powers to try:
Sudden a look of languor he descries,
And well-feign'd apprehension in her eyes;
Train'd, but yet savage, in her speaking face,
He mark'd the features of her vagrant race;
When a light laugh and roguish leer express'd
The vice implanted in her youthful breast!
Within, the Father, who from fences nigh
Had brought the fuel for the fire's supply,
Watch'd now the feeble blaze, and stood dejected by:
On ragged rug, just borrow'd from the bed,
And by the hand of coarse indulgence fed,
In dirty patchwork negligently dress'd,
Reclin'd the Wife, an infant at her breast;
In her wild face some touch of grace remain'd,
Of vigour palsied and of beauty stain'd ;
Her blood-shot eyes on her unheeding mate,
Were wrathful turn'd, and seem'd her wants to state,
Cursing his tardy aid her Mother there

With Gipsy-state engrossed the only chair;
Solemn and dull her look: with such she stands,
And reads the Milk-maid's fortune, in her hands,
Tracing the lines of life; assum'd through years,
Each feature now the steady falsehood wears;
With hard and savage eye she views the food,
And grudging pinches their intruding brood!
Last in the group, the worn-out Grandsire sits,
Neglected, lost, and living but by fits;

336

CRABBE'S TALES

EDWARD SHORE.

Useless, despis'd, his worthless labours done,
And half protected by the vicious Son,
Who half supports him! He with heavy glance,
Views the young ruffians who around him dance;
And, by the sadness in his face, appears
To trace the progress of their future years;
Through what strange course of misery, vice, deceit,
Must wildly wander each unpractis'd cheat;

What shame and grief, what punishment and pain,
Sport of fierce passions, must each child sustain
Ere they like him approach their latter end,

Without a hope, a comfort, or a friend!"-p. 180-182.

The next story, which is entitled "Edward Shore," also contains many passages of exquisite beauty. The hero is a young man of aspiring genius and enthusiastic temper, with an ardent love of virtue, but no settled principles either of conduct or opinion. He first conceives an attachment for an amiable girl, who is captivated with his conversation; - but being too poor to marry, soon comes to spend more of his time in the family of an elderly sceptic (though we really see no object in giving him that character) of his acquaintance, who had recently married a young wife, and placed unbounded confidence in her virtue, and the honour of his friend. In a moment of temptation, they abuse his confidence. The husband renounces him with dignified composure; and he falls at once from the romantic pride of his virtue. He then seeks the company of the dissipated and gay; and ruins his health and fortune, without regaining his tranquillity. When in gaol, and miserable, he is relieved by an unknown hand; and traces the benefaction to the friend whose former kindness he had so ill repaid. This humiliation falls upon his proud spirit and shattered nerves with an overwhelming force; and his reason fails beneath it. He is for some time a raving maniac; and then falls into a state of gay and compassionable imbecility, which is described with inimitable beauty in the close of this story. We can afford but a few extracts. The nature of the seductions which led to his first fatal lapse are well intimated in the following short passage:

FINE PICTURE OF SHATTERED INTELLECT.

337

"Then as the Friend repos'd, the younger Pair
Sat down to cards, and play'd beside his chair;
Till he awaking, to his books applied,

Or heard the music of th' obedient Bride;
If mild th' evening, in the fields they stray'd,
And their own flock with partial eye survey'd;
But oft the Husband, to indulgence prone,
Resum'd his book, and bade them walk alone.
"This was obey'd; and oft when this was done
They calmly gaz'd on the declining sun;
In silence saw the glowing landscape fade,
Or, sitting, sang beneath the arbour's shade:

Till rose the moon, and on each youthful face,

Shed a soft beauty, and a dangerous grace."-p. 198, 199

The ultimate downfall of this lofty mind, with its agonising gleams of transitory recollection, form a picture, than which we do not know if the whole range of our poetry, rich as it is in representations of disordered intellect, furnishes any thing more touching, or delineated with more truth and delicacy.

"Harmless at length th' unhappy man was found,
The spirit settled, but the reason drown'd;
And all the dreadful tempest died away,

To the dull stillness of the misty day!

And now his freedom he attain'd—if free
The lost to reason, truth, and hope, can be;

The playful children of the place he meets;

Playful with them he rambles through the streets;
In all they need, his stronger arm he lends,

And his lost mind to these approving friends.

"That gentle Maid, whom once the Youth had lov'd,

Is now with mild religious pity mov'd;

Kindly she chides his boyish flights, while he

Will for a moment fix'd and pensive be;
And as she trembling speaks, his lively eyes,
Explore her looks, he listens to her sighs;
Charm'd by her voice, th' harmonious sounds invade
His clouded mind, and for a time persuade :
Like a pleas'd Infant, who has newly caught
From the maternal glance, a gleam of thought;
He stands enrapt, the half-known voice to hear,
And starts, half-conscious, at the falling tear!

"Rarely from town, nor then unwatch'd, he goes,
In darker mood, as if to hide his woes;

But soon returning, with impatience seeks

His youthful friends, and shouts, and sings, and speaks;
Speaks a wild speech, with action all as wild-

The children's leader, and himself a child;

338

CRABBE'S TALES

JESSE AND COLIN.

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He spins their top, or, at their bidding bends
His back, while o'er it leap his laughing friends;
Simple and weak, he acts the boy once more,
And heedless children call him Silly Shore."-

p. 206, 207.

Squire Thomas" is not nearly so interesting. This is the history of a mean domineering spirit, who, having secured the succession of a rich relation by assiduous flattery, looks about for some obsequious and yielding fair one, from whom he may exact homage in his turn. He thinks he has found such a one in a lowly damsel in his neighbourhood, and marries her without much premeditation; — when he discovers, to his consternation, not only that she has the spirit of a virago, but that she and her family have decoyed him into the match, to revenge or indemnify themselves for his having run away with the whole inheritance of their common relative. She hopes to bully him into a separate maintenance— but his avarice refuses to buy his peace at such a price; and they continue to live together, on a very successful system of mutual tormenting.

"Jesse and Colin" pleases us much better. Jesse is the orphan of a poor clergyman, who goes, upon her father's death, to live with a rich old lady who had been his friend; and Colin is a young farmer, whose father had speculated away a handsome property; and who, though living in a good degree by his own labour, yet wished the damsel (who half wished it also) to remain and share his humble lot. The rich lady proves to be suspicious, overbearing, and selfish; and sets Jesse upon the ignoble duty of acting the spy and informer over the other dependents of her household; on the delineation of whose characters Mr. Crabbe has lavished a prodigious power of observation and correct description:- But this not suiting her pure and ingenuous mind, she suddenly leaves the splendid mansion, and returns to her native village, where Colin and his mother soon persuade her to form one of their happy family. There is a great deal of good-heartedness in this tale, and a kind of moral beauty, which has lent more than usual elegance to the