SQUIRE GEORGE'S HISTORY. 359 duce these narrative brothers and their Hall a little more particularly to our readers. The history of the elder and more austere is not particularly probable-nor very interesting; but it affords many passages extremely characteristic of the author. He was a spoiled child, and grew up into a youth of a romantic and contemplative turn-dreaming, in his father's rural abode, of divine nymphs and damsels all passion and purity. One day he had the good luck to rescue a fair lady from a cow, and fell desperately in love:-Though he never got to speech of his charmer, who departed from the place where she was on a visit, and eluded the eager search with which he pursued her, in town and country, for many a long year: For this foolish and poetical passion settled down on his spirits; and neither time nor company, nor the business of a London banker, could effect a diversion. At last, at the end of ten or twelve years for the fit lasted that unreasonable time-being then an upper clerk in his uncle's bank, he stumbled upon his Dulcinea in a very unexpected way - and a way that no one but Mr. Crabbe would either have thought of-or thought of describing in verse. In short, he finds her established as the chère amie of another respectable banker! and after the first shock is over, sets about considering how he may reclaim her. The poor Perdita professes penitence; and he offers to assist and support her if she will abandon her evil The following passage is fraught with a deep and a melancholy knowledge of character and of human courses. nature. "She vow'd she tried! - Alas! she did not know How deeply rooted evil habits grow! She felt the truth upon her spirits press, But such as soothe to sleep th' opposing mind- Sank, and let sin confuse her and control: Pleasures that brought disgust yet brought relief, And minds she hated help'd to war with grief."— vol. i. p. 163. 360 CRABBE CAPTAIN RICHARD. As her health fails, however, her relapses become less frequent; at and last shedies, grateful and resigned. Her awakened lover is stunned by the blow - takes seriously to business and is in danger of becoming avaricious; when a severe illness rouses him to higher thoughts, and he takes his name out of the firm, and, being turned of sixty, seeks a place of retirement. 66 He chose his native village, and the hill He climb'd a boy had its attraction still; With that small brook beneath, where he would stand, To quench th' impatient thirst- then stop awhile To see the sun upon the waters smile, In that sweet weariness, when, long denied, "The oaks yet flourish'd in that fertile ground, The Hall of Binning! his delight a boy, The Hall at Binning! - how he loves the gloom P. 4-6. Those broad brown stairs on which he loves to tread; Those beams within; without, that length of lead, On which the names of wanton boys appear, Who died old men, and left memorials here, Carvings of feet and hands, and knots and flowers, The fruits of busy minds in idle hours."- vol. i. So much for Squire George -unless any reader should care to know, as Mr. Crabbe has kindly told, that "The Gentleman was tall," and, moreover, "Looked old when followed, but alert when met." Of Captain Richard, the story is more varied and rambling. He was rather neglected in his youth; and passed his time, when a boy, very much, as we cannot help supposing, Mr. Crabbe must have passed his own. He ran wild in the neighbourhood of a seaport, and found occupation enough in its precincts. SEAPORT PICTURES. Where crowds assembled I was sure to run, And often wond'ring what the men could mean. "To me the wives of seamen loved to tell What storms endanger'd men esteem'd so well; "No ships were wreck'd upon that fatal beach, "There were fond girls, who took me to their side They praised my tender heart, and bade me prove 361 Once he saw a boat upset; and still recollects enough to give this spirited sketch of the scene. "Then were those piercing shrieks, that frantic flight, A gathering crowd from different streets drew near, "O! how impatient on the sands we tread, "And who is she apart? She dares not come He also pries into the haunts of the smugglers, and makes friends with the shepherds on the downs in summer; and then he becomes intimate with an old sailor's wife, to whom he reads sermons, and histories, and jest books, and hymns, and indelicate ballads! The character of this woman is one of the many examples of talent and labour misapplied. It is very powerfully, and, we doubt not, very truly drawn-but it will attract few readers. Yet the story she is at last brought to tell of her daughter will command a more general interest. "Ruth While Ruth was apprehensive, mild, and sad.' They are betrothed- and something more than betrothed—when, on the eve of their wedding-day, the youth is carried relentlessly off by a press-gang; and soon after is slain in battle!— and a preaching weaver then woos, with nauseous perversions of scripture, the loathing and widowed bride. This picture, too, is strongly drawn; - but we hasten to a scene of far more power as well as pathos. Her father urges her to wed the missioned suitor; and she agrees to give her answer on Sunday. "She left her infant on the Sunday morn, - A creature doom'd to shame! in sorrow born. HUMBLE AND TRUE PATHOS. For he had learning: and when that was done We said and then rush'd frighten'd from the door, We call'd on neighbours - there she had not been; I scarcely heard the good man's fearful shout, "And she was gone! the waters wide and deep She heard no more the angry waves and wind, "But O! what storm was in that mind! what strife, 363 Richard afterwards tells how he left the sea and entered the army, and fought and marched in the Peninsula; and how he came home and fell in love with a parson's daughter, and courted and married her; — and he tells it all very prettily,— and, moreover, that he is very happy, and very fond of his wife and children.— But we must now take the Adelphi out of doors; and let them introduce some of their acquaintances. Among the first to whom we are presented are two sisters, still in the bloom of life, who had been cheated out of a handsome independence by the cunning of a speculating banker, and deserted by their lovers in consequence of this calamity. Their characters are drawn with infinite skill and minuteness, and their whole story told with |