CRABBE. THE POET AND HIS POETRY. [GEORGE CRABBE, was a native of Aldborough, in Suffolk, and was brought up as an Apothecary, at Woodbridge, but arriving in London, and becoming known to the illustrious Edmund Burke, he was brought into notice at an early age, and the "Library," and the "Village," were published under the patronage of that great man. Soon after the Poet (took holy orders, and no man perhaps, deserved more, or obtained to a higher degree, the love and veneration of his parishioners. He was Rector of Trowbridge, where he resided many years, merging all the intellectual glories of the poet, into the higher moral ones of the man and the Christian. He died in 1832, and his funeral was attended by a very large proportion of the inhabitants of his parish, anxious to testify their regard for christian worthiness. Crabbe has been called "Though nature's sternest painter yet her best." If a rigid determination to copy nature as she is, be a proof of superiority in a poet, Crabbe was without question one of the first poets of his age. Truth is without question the principal ingredient in all the poet's writings, and he has laid open the dark places in the human heart, and the rotten parts of our social condition with skill never surpassed, and seldom equalled. In studying his sketches, we do not rise up ennobled, or vitalized with what we have read, but rather tremble and deplore. No man perhaps, has better illustrated the Scriptural passage "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;" for this reason, many profess to dislike Crabbe, and charge him with not having given nature her due. There can be, however, little doubt, that all his pictures are the result of an enlarged experience in man, and with men ; and that they bear, whatever may be their defects, the sterling stamp of Truth.] EXTRACTS FROM CRABBE. THE ENGLISH PEASANT'S DWELLING. Is there a place, save one the poet sees, A land of love, of liberty, and ease; Where labour wearies not, nor cares suppress Th' eternal flow of rustic happiness; Where no proud mansion frowns in awful state, Vain search for scenes like these! no view appears, Hence good and evil mix'd, but man has skill And there he stands imprison'd, and his queen; There is king Charles, and all his Golden Rules, The magic-mill that grinds the gran'nams young, There stands the stoutest Ox in England fed; Now lo! in Egypt's coast that hostile fleet, By nations dreaded and by Nelson beat; And here shall soon another triumph come, A deed of glory in a day of gloom; Distressing glory! grievous boon of fate! The proudest conquest, at the dearest rate. On shelf of deal beside the cuckoo-clock, Of cottage reading rests the chosen stock; Learning we lack, not books, but have a kind For all our wants, a meat for every mind: The tale for wonder and the joke for whim; The half-sung sermon and the half-groan'd hymn. No need of classing; each within its place, The feeling finger in the dark can trace; "First from the corner, farthest from the wall," Such all the rules, and they suffice for all. There pious works for Sunday's use are found! Companions for that Bible newly bound; That Bible, bought by sixpence weekly saved, Has choicest prints by famous hands engraved; Has choicest notes by many a famous head, Such as to doubt have rustic readers led: Have made them stop to reason why? and how? And where they once agreed, to cavil now. Oh! rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain; Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun; Who simple truth with nine-fold reasons back, And guard the point no enemies attack, Bunyan's famed Pilgrim rests that shelf uponA genius rare but rude was honest John: Not one who, early by the Muse beguiled, Drank from her well the waters undefiled; Not one who slowly gain'd the hill sublime, Then often sipp'd and little at a time: But one who dabbled in the sacred springs, And drank them muddy, mix'd with baser things. Here to interpret dreams we read the rules, Science our own! and never taught in schools; In moles and specks we fortune's gifts discern, And Fate's fix'd will from Nature's wanderings learn. Of Hermit Quarle we read, in island rare, Far from mankind and seeming far from care; Safe from all want, and sound in every limb; Yes! there was he, and there was care with him. Unbound and heap'd, these valued works beside, Crowns Thumb the Great, and Hickerthrift the Strong. Jack, by whose arm the giant-brood were quell'd: THE SANDS. Turn to the watery world !—but who to thee When lull'd by zephyrs, or when roused by storms, And oft the foggy banks on ocean lie, Lift the fair sail, and cheat th 'experienced eye. Be it the summer noon: a sandy space Light twinkling streams in bright confusion move; D D Or tap the tarry boat with gentle blow, Yet sometimes comes a ruffling cloud to make The quiet surface of the ocean shake, As an awaken'd giant with a frown Might show his wrath, and then to sleep sink down. View now the winter-storm! above, one cloud, Black and unbroken, all the skies o'ershroud : Th' unwieldy porpoise through the day before Had roll'd in view of boding men on shore; And sometimes hid and sometimes show'd his form, Dark as the cloud, and furious as the storm. All where the eye delights, yet dreads to roam, The breaking billows cast the flying foam Upon the billows rising,-all the deep Is restless change; the waves so swell'd and steep, May watch the mightiest till the shoal they reach, |