since the Augustan age bave vainly, as it strikes us, endeavoured to transfuse into more figurative and brilliant numbers. Tasso says of Erminia,

"Non si destò fin che garrir gli augelli
Non senti lieti, e salutar gli albori,

E mormorare il fiume, e gli arboscelli,

E con l' onda scherzar l'aura, e co' fiori."

And Milton of the sleep of Adam,

"Which the only sound

Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan,
Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song
Of birds on every bough."

It is observable that Milton here is more Italian than Tasso.

It must then be acknowledged that even the meanest station is not perfectly barren of interesting subjects: but the writer, who covets the praise of being a faithful transcriber rather than a generous interpreter of nature, may be allowed to descend a step lower in the scale of exact delineation. There is a class of "real pictures" which is connected with no peculiar associations; and which may therefore, as far as the imagination is concerned, be called neutral. Of this nature are minute descriptions of agricultural pursuits, of ingenious mechanism, of the construction of buildings, of the implements of husbandry. Such descriptions are, in a long work, necessary, for the sake of variety; and are, at all times, if happily executed, grateful to the understanding as specimens of intellectual skill and dexterity. But it is indispensable that they should be strictly neutral. On this head much misconception has arisen from a confused apprehension of the analogy between poetry and painting. Because in painting, low and even offensive subjects are admitted, it is taken for granted that poetry also ought to have its Dutch school.

Without entering at length into this discussion, it may not be improperly suggested that, even in painting, there is a limit beyond which no prudent artist would venture to try the indulgence of the spectator. A variety of performances might be specified, in which the highest powers are in vain tasked to their utmost, to atone for the vulgarity and grossness of the subjects.

It may be suggested farther, that the Dutch school is indebted for its celebrity, not in any part to the nature of its subjects, but exclusively to its happiness of execution. It professes to address only the eye; and its failings are lost and overlooked in the perfection of its mechanical excellence, in its grouping and management of light and shade, in the harmony and radiance of its tones, and the luxuriance of its manner. The success of its productions is signally the triumph of colouring and composition: the subject, in a word, is the least part of these paintings. Poetry, on the other hand, is destitute of means to fascinate the external senses, and appeals to the mind alone. It is, indeed, popularly said, that words are the colours of poetry: but if this metaphor were just, it would, in the present case, be inapplicable. The new system which Mr. Crabbe patronises, and to which, therefore, our remarks primarily refer, disclaims the attempt to disguise its studies from Nature under glowing and ornamental language.

We have hitherto considered the great principle on which our author proceeds. But this principle is not, with him, merely theoretical. Its impression visibly affects the character and impairs the merit of his writings.

The minute accuracy of relation which it inculcates, however favourable to the display of his uncommon powers of research, has a tendency to throw an air of littleness and technical precision over his performances. His description is frittered down, till, instead of a spirited sketch, it becomes a tame detail. We will not say that he is incapable of large and comprehensive views; but he is surely somewhat slow to indulge in them. Thus his knowledge of man is never exhibited on a grand scale. It is clear and exact, but statistical rather than geographic; a knowledge of the individual rather than of the species. In his pictures there is little keeping; his figures, though singly admirable, are carelessly and clumsily grouped: and the whole drawing, while it abounds in free and masterly strokes, is yet deficient in depth and roundness.

The characteristic of Mr. Crabbe's writings is force and this is the quality of which he most affects the praise. The finer parts of genius he neglects as useless or despises as weak. What he sees strongly, he makes a point of conscience to describe fearlessly. Occasionally, perhaps, this ambition of vigour drives him into unintentional vulgarity. Yet it cannot be disguised that he more commonly sins without this excuse: he admits coarseness on system. It is the original principle still operating. His sagacity in the discovery, and his ardour in the pursuit, of offensive images are sometimes astonishing. His imagination never shrinks from the irksome task of threading the detail of vice and wretchedness.

The habit of anatomically tracing and recording the deformities of his fellow creatures has communicated to some of his descriptions an appearance of harshness and invective, which we are persuaded has no counterpart in his feelings. He is evidently a man of great benevolence, but is apt to indulge in a caustic raillery, which may be mistaken for ill-nature. In his pity there seems to be more of contempt than of tenderness, and the objects of his compassion are, at the same time, the objects of his satire. In the same manner, he is jealous of giving his reader unmixed gratification; and, even when his subject is inevitably pleasing, too often contrives, by the dexterous intervention of some less agreeable image, to dash the pleasure which he may have unwillingly inspired.

To the effect of his favourite doctrines also, we are disposed to ascribe it, that his perception of the beauties of nature has so little of inspiration about it. Living on the verge of fields, and groves, and streams, and breathing the very air which fans them, he is never tempted to forget himself in the contemplation of such scenes. A prospect of the country never thrills him as with the sudden consciousness of a new sense. We do not recollect that, in any part of his writings, he mentions the singing of birds, except

We cannot conceive him to pour forth strains of such elastic gaiety as those which salute the month of "March" in Graham's Georgics :

"Raised by the coming plough, the merry lark
Upsprings, and soaring, joins the high-poised choirs
That carol far and near, in spiral flight

Some rising, some descending, some beyond
The visual ken, making the vaulted sky
One vast orchestra, full of joyful songs,
Of melodies, to which the heart of man,
Buoyant with praise, in unison responds."

Nor can we conceive him to feel the exultation of Thomson when he exclaims,

Nor yet the more lines of Cowper:

"I care not, Fortune, what you me deny :

You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;

You cannot shut the windows of the sky,

Through which Aurora shows her bright'ning face;

You cannot bar my constant feet to trace

The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve."

solemn and chastised swellings of the heart that breathe in these

"Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore

The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds,

That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood
Of ancient growth, make music not unlike
The dash of ocean on his winding shore,
And lull the spirit while they fill the mind;
Unnumber'd branches waving on the blast,
And all their leaves fast flutt'ring, all at once.
Nor less composure waits upon the roar
Of distant floods, or on the softer voice
Of neighb'ring fountain, or of rills that slip

Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall
Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length
In matted grass, that with a livelier green
Betrays the secret of their silent course."

It is consistent with this habit of mind that our author should evince little relish for the sentimental. From that whole class of intellectual pleasure he is not less averse in principle than in practice. He lives, if we may be allowed the expression, without an atmosphere. Every object is seen in its true situation and dimensions ;-there is neither colour nor refraction. No poet was ever less of a visionary.

We are inclined to think that Mr. Crabbe's taste is not equal to his other powers; and this deficiency we attribute, partly indeed to the original constitution of his genius, but much more to the operation of local circumstances. A life of retirement is, perhaps, in no case very favourable to the cultivation of taste. Unless the mind be sustained in its just position by the intercourse and encounter of living opinions, it is apt to be carried away by the current of some particular system, and contracts in science, as well as in morals, a spirit of favouritism and bigotry. The love of simplicity especially, which is natural to an intellect of strong and masculine proportions, is peculiarly liable to degenerate into a toleration of coarseness. Mr. Crabbe, however, seems to have been exposed to an influence doubly ungenial-that of solitude, in his hours of study; and in his hours of relaxation, that of the society with which his professional duties probably obliged him to become familiar. Even on a judgment the most happily tempered and vigilantly guarded, an intimate acquaintance with such a society must have operated fatally; either by deadening its tact altogether, or by polishing it to an unnatural keenness; and its influence will be still greater on a mind naturally little fastidious, and predisposed perhaps to prefer strength to elegance.

The impression which results from a general view of our author's compositions is such as we have stated. There are detached passages, however, in which he appears under a more engaging character. When he escapes from his favourite topics of vulgarity and misery,

he throws off his defects, and purifies himself as he ascends into a purer region. Some of the most pleasing are also among the happiest of his efforts. The few sketches which he has condescended to give of rural life, are distinguished not more for their truth than for their sobriety and chasteness of manner. His love of circumstantial information is likely, in ordinary cases, to confound rather than inform, by inducing him to present us with a collection of unconnected and equally prominent facts, of which no arrangement is made, because there is no reason why one should have the precedence of another. But when the feelings are to be questioned, and the heart is to be laid bare, the same principle leads him closely to follow up nature; and thus we are conducted, step by step, to the highest point of interest. In the struggle of the passions, we delight to trace the workings of the soul; we love to mark the swell of every vein, and the throb of every pulse; every stroke that searches a new source of pity and terror we pursue with a busy and inquisitive sympathy. It is from this cause that Mr. Crabbe's delineations of the passions are so just-so touching of the gentle, and of the awful so tremendous. Remorse and madness have been rarely portrayed by a more powerful hand. For feeling, imagery, and agitation of thoughts, the lines in which Sir Eustace Grey* tells the story of his insanity are second to few modern productions. The contrast between the state of the madman, and the evening scene on which he was condemned to gaze, gives a tone of penetrating anguish to the following verses :

"There was I fix'd, I know not how,

Condemn'd for untold years to stay;
Yet years were not-one dreadful Now
Endured no change of night or day.
"The same mild evening's sleeping ray
Shone softly solemn and serene;
And all that time I gazed away,

The setting sun's sad rays were seen."

It may be remarked that the emphatical expression, "One dreadful Now," is to be found in Cowley's Davideis.

There is great force in these two lines,

"I've dreaded all the guilty dread,

And done what they would fear to do."

But that which gives the last finish to this vision of despair is contained in these words

"And then, my dreams were such as nought
Could yield, but my unhappy case."

Our author is no less successful when he wishes to excite a milder interest, when he describes the calm of a virtuous old age, the cheerfulness of pious resignation, the sympathies of innocent love. His paintings of this nature are done in his best style; and, though we perceive in them something of his usual dry and harsh manner, yet this peculiarity is now no longer a blemish, because it accords with the unpretending plainness of his subject.

It is, after all, on this portion of his works that he must build the fairest part of his reputation. The poetry which speaks to the understanding alone cannot permanently attract the mass of mankind; while that which moves the passions and the heart, has already received the talisman of fame, and may securely commit itself to the affections of every coming age. It is very pleasing to perceive that, in his best passages, Mr. Crabbe is, practically at least, a convert to the good old principle of paying some regard to fancy and taste in poetry. In these passages he works expressly for the imagination; not perhaps awakening its loftiest exertions, yet studiously courting its assistance and conciliating its good-will. He now accommodates himself to the more delicate sympathies of our nature, and flatters our prejudices by attaching to his pictures agreeable and interesting associations. Thus it is that, for his best success, he is indebted to something more than ungarnished reality. He is the Paladin who, on the day of decisive combat, laid aside his mortal arms, and took only the magic lance. - Quarterly Review, vol. iv. pp. 281-295.

END OF VOL. I.

COLLECTION

OF

ANCIENT AND MODERN

BRITISH AUTHORS.

VOL. CI.

SELECTIONS

FROM THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW.