Stakes, brought to smite him, threatened in his cause, And tongues, attun'd to curses, roar ap plause ; groans, Soft women fainted, prouder man exprest breast: Eyes wept, ears tingled; stiffening on each The hair drew back, and Satan howl'd and fled." pp. 62, 63. Even if we were disposed to allow that trash like this may occasionally be heard from some of the lower Methodists, Mr. Crabbe will still have to plead guilty to the charge of unfairness, unless he be prepared to contend, that it is the ordinary language of all, or, at least, of the majority of those called Calvinists or Arminians. We believe he would not, in sober prose, assert this. We believe it to be absolutely contrary to fact; but admit that, as a question of fact, it is not to be decided by argument. We leave it willingly to the judgment of such of our readers as are competent to bring it to the test of their own observation and experience. This, however, we may fairly claim from Mr. Crabbe, that he should specify, from among the mass of sermons published by the objects of his satire, some ten or twenty instances in proof of the fairness of his representations. sentations are just, this cannot be If his reprea difficult imposition. As the case really stands, he will find some difficulty in complying with it. But though the injustice done by this author to the Methodists, and the other sectaries whom he has attacked, can be satisfactorily proved only by an appeal to fact, there is something in the nature of the attack itself, and in the manner in which it is conducted, which, independently of its injustice, calls for strong reprehension. He appears to us to have added to that class of writers, who, by putting the language and sentiments of religion into the mouth of meanness and imbecility, have been guilty of transferring to religion herself a portion of the dislike and contempt due to the qualities with which she is thus invidiously associated. Mr. Crabbe must have read the Tartuffe of Moliere, the School for and it cannot, we think, have esScandal, and the Spiritual Quixote; the aim of these works, their tencaped him, that whatever might be dency is not merely to expose hypoto ridicule all persons professing crisy or weakness, but that it is also morality or religion, with whatever discretion and sincerity that profession may be made. He must have observed, too, that this is accomplished by the obvious means of giving to fools and hypocrites much of the same language, many of the same sentiments, and some of the conduct, by which every true Christian is distinguished; and then neglecting to trace the line between what is right in these persons and what is wrong, and taking care present no contrasted characters, by may be exemplified, and her howhom the graces of real religion nour redeemed. to Rel are not charged with violating truth. The It is not that these authors can be subjects of their satire ideal. Though we believe them to be uncommon, they may, no doubt, occasionally be found. It is the plain unfair impression of which we comthe invidious association the reproach of a few false profeswhich throws on the faith itself, sors. be correct or not, in attributing so at least activity, energy, and apparent zeal. They refer to scripture. They speak strongly of the influence of the Spirit, and the agency of Satan. They profess a separation from the world, and boliness of heart and life. Now all these things are good and praiseworthy, and we are confident that Mr. Crabbe will allow them to be so. How is it, then, that he incorporates them, without any mark of distinction, in a mass of what is ridiculous and despicable? How is it that he, a minister of the established church, associates, with ludicrous and disgusting images, such qualities and such doctrines as those we have here mentioned, without warning his readers to what part alone he means to point their contempt? How is it that he has not made amends for this defect, by exhibiting the good principles of his sectaries in some other person or per. sons of character more consistent and respectable? The effect of his representation, as it now stands, will certainly be to persuade those who are already disposed to confound sincere piety with cant, that they are in reality the same thing; to convince them that zeal and spirituality are at least not essential to the religious character; and that they are chiefly, if not only, found among those whom neither taste nor reason can approve. Of this part of his work, the author has inserted in his Preface, an anticipatory defence, which we have read with candour and attention, and in which we can find nothing to justify him from the charge which we have here felt ourselves compelled to advance. It can only acquit him of the imputation of intentional enmity to the cause of Religion, and of this we have never felt disposed to accuse him. Indeed, there is much about his writings, and particularly in the story of which we have above expressed our admiration, that bespeaks a serious mind; and we are inclined to attribute every indication of the contrary kind to an unguardedness, of which poetic ardour was, perhaps, the cause, and for which it must be the apology. We pass on to the ninth Letter, in which our attention is arrested by a highly picturesque and affecting scene. In recounting the amusements of the Borough, a party are supposed to be taking tea on an islet formed by the recession of the tide. In this situation, the boat is observed by one of the ladies to have drifted away. It is impossible to read the description that follows, without the strongest emotions of terror and sympathy; and we think it must be allowed that in the conception of this passage, Mr. Crabbe has reached the high praise of sublimity. "She gazed, she trembled, and tho' faint her call, It seem'd like thunder, to confound them all, Their sailor guides, the boatman and his mate, Had drank and slept regardless of their state! Awake!' they cried aloud. Alarm the shore! Shout all, or never shall we reach it more! Alas! no shout the distant land can reach, Nor eye behold them from the foggy beach. Then cease, and eager listen for reply: Again they join in one loud powerful cry, None came-the rising wind blew sadly by. They shout once more, and then they turn the recollection of our readers. We have room, however, for only one more extract, and it shall be taken from the 22d Letter, which, with several others, is devoted entirely to the delineation of individual character. The subject of this letter is "Peter Grimes," one of those gloomy and revolting personages with whom Mr. Crabbe loves to startle the imagination of his readers. Grimes is a fisherman, a wretch of most inhuman cruelty, and is supposed to have murdered three boys who had been bound apprentice to him. It is easy to recognize in the imagery of the following lines, the same sombre and terrific pencil which pourtrayed the madness of Sir Eustace Grey. “When tides were neap, and in the sultry day, Through the tall bounding mud-banks, made their way, Which on each side rose swelling, and below The dark warm flood ran silently and slow; There anchoring, Peter chose from man to hide, There hang his head, and view the lazy tide In its hot slimy channel slowly glide; Where the small eels, that left the deeper way For the warm shore, within the shallows play; Where gaping muscles, left upon the mud, Slope their slow passage to the fallen flood, Here, dull and hopeless, he'd lie down, and trace How sideling crabs had scrawl'd their crook ed race; Or sadly listen to the tuneless cry Of fishing gull or clanging golden eye.” "He nurst the feelings these dull scenes produce, Horrors that would the sternest minds amaze, Horrors that dæmons might be proud to raise ; And though he felt forsaken, grieved at heart, Yet, if a man approach'd, in terrors he To think he liv'd from all mankind apart; would start." pp. 305–307. (We have not attempted to present our readers with any analysis of this poem, for a very simple reason-that it is without a regular plan. It is totally destitute of what is calcircumstance that we principally atled unity of design; and it is to this tribute that lassitude which, notwithstanding the numerous beauties it contains, we have frequently has, indeed, what, in the almost anknown its readers to experience. (It termed unity of place.) The scene tiquated language of criticism, is is uniformly laid in the "Borough But, subject to this exception, it may be considered not as one poem, but as a miscellaneous collection of poems. The different parts are not essentially connected with each other, or with the whole. There is no continued action, or common catastrophe. We believe that in every poem of equal length with "The Borough," a similar construction has been found to produce the same prejudicial effect. In Thomson's Seasons (to put a strong instance), we have a poem fertile in the most astonishing displays of genius, and much more regular than "The Borough" in its design: yet the want of connection between its parts has been always sensibly felt by the most ardent of its admirers *. The And lov'd to stop beside the op'ning analogy of the different Seasons sluice; forms a chain too slight to confine the attention; and amidst all its vaand versification, the interest of the ried beauties of imagery, sentiment, poem languishes for want of method. It is not surprising, then, that in "The Borough" the same error should not have been committed with impunity; but we think it is surprising that it should have been committed with this example, and a * See this defect noticed by Johnson, in his life of that poet. 3 X симил multitude of others, equally instruc-' tive, before the eyes of the author. There are several other faults, not confined to the present poem, but exemplified in all the other works of Mr. Crabbe, as well as in that under review, which we reluctantly feel ourselves compelled, in our quality of critics, to point out. Among these, that which we consider as the principal, is the choice of the subjects. We have before noticed that Mr. Crabbe is fond of dealing in low life. But this is not all. (Whatever in low life is most abhorrent and disgusting, vice, infamy, and disease, indigence, insanity, and despair, seem to be eagerly selected by this author as the images most animating and congenial to his muse, as the topics most favourable to inspiration. It is not enough that his hero should be vulgar; he must also be vile, and his fate must not only be tragical, but loathsome. No gleam of hope is allowed to pierce the dungeon which Mr. Crabbe exhibits: no tears of repentance to bedew the scaffold erected by him. We have not chosen to make any extracts which would put modesty to pain; but it is easy to perceive that, among the other objections to such kind of writing, it necessarily involves much indelicacy. In his pursuit of horrors, this author does not scruple to lay open the recesses of licentiousness, and to "drag into day" the sickening deformities of low debauchery We rejoice, however, to believe that it is to the temptation of being tragical alone that the fault is to be attributed, and that his object is Where his subjects are not revolting, they are often radically mean and uninteresting, such as no importance of moral can exalt, or splendour of fiction adorn. Quac kery, elections, trades, inns, hospitals--what genius can hope to throw the least glimmering of poetic lustre upon materials so cold and coarse as these? It is with most impartial accuracy that he himself has characterised them, as - "Scenes yet unsung — which few would choose to sing." p. 149. That be should have succeeded so well, in the management of such untractable materials, is certainly a decisive proof of his extraordinary powers as a poet. We We are aware that Mr. Crabbe's peculiarity, in the choice of his subjects, is the effect of deliberate intention, and part of the plan and character of composition which he has prescribed to himself. know that he has said much, and has still much to say, in its defence. He will admit, that such topics are not, in themselves, the most eligible; and that, if he had had no predecessors in poetry, he would have applied himself exclusively to but he will observe, that he is born those of an opposite description; in a late age of poetry; that the most agreeable and advantageous topics are pre-occupied and worn therefore, in a change of subject, threadbare; and that he seeks, that originality which it is no longer hibit. If this is not the defence he possible, by any other means, to exwould adopt, it is at least that which, in our opinion, may be the most plausibly urged in his favour. Yet it amounts to very little. It is, in effect, an admission, that the subis not jects are unfortunate, and it justifies their adoption merely on the ground never to be indelicate. But we en- birth to such passages, proved, by that circumstance alone, A confirmation of this assertion will be of necessity. And even this justification, limited and disclaiming as it is, is unsupported by fact. We cannot admit that the era has yet arrived at which it is necessary to take up with the refuse materials of poetry; and, in proof of our opinion, it is only necessary, we conceive, to mention the names of Campbell and of Scott. (It is ob vious that Mr. Crabbe does not want the powers to raise him into that scale of public estimation which these distinguished poets now occupy. He is inferior to them only because his subjects keep him down; and while this is the case, he falls under the same sentence which a very competent judge has pronounced on those who, in the same taste, have cultivated the sister art, " The painters who have applied themselves more particularly to low and vulgar characters, and who express with precision the various shades of passion as they are exhi bited by vulgar minds (such as we see in the works of Hogarth), deserve great praise; but as their genius has been employed on low and confined subjects, the praise that we give must be as limited as its object." Sir J. REYNOLDS' Discourse. It only remains to notice two other blemishes in the poetry of Mr. Crabbe, of minor importance, indeed, to those which have been already specified, but too considerable to be overlooked. These are an ill-advised fondness for antithesis is very appropriately put into the mouth of the finical vicar, whose example, one might have thought, would have been a warning to Mr. Crabbe. "Not without moral compliment-low they Like flowers were sweet, and must like flowers decay." p. 3-4. In his versification, we observe occasionally great harshness, and a want of the lime labor; a fault the more remarkable, as, in its general features, it is, doubtless, formed upon that of Pope. (The following disjointed paragraph may serve for example: "The old foundation-but it is not clear When it was laid-you care not for the year; Arose these varied disproportion'd forms,; Ou this, as parts decay'd by time and storms Yet, Gothic all: the learn'd who visit us, And our small wonders, have decided thus: Yon noble Gothic arch,' that Gothic doorSo have they said; of proof you'll need no more." p. 18. T Another objection that we must make to Mr. Crabbe's versification is its general character of monotony. The cæsura is sometimes for nearly a page together in the middle of the line. Of this fault it is unnecessary to give a specimen. Every one who reads "The Borough" aloud will detect it at once in the heayi and point, and a slovenly system of ness of the recitation have seldom 1 versification. Of the first, it would be easy to produce numerous examples. Let the following suffice. Of sea-gulls, he says, that they clap the sleek white pinion to the breast, And in the restless ocean dip for rest." p. 11. The opposition here is merely verbal, and amounts to nothing more than a quibble. 1 In another place, he talks of The easy followers in the female train, Led without love, and captives without chain." p. 33. If this antithesis were as happy as it is otherwise, it would still be impossible to forgive the alliteration. In the following page, the figure On the whole, we have seldom met with a poet who combines, with the very signal merit of Mr. Crabbe, a greater alloy of imperfection. If he were a young man, and a hasty composer, we should hope every thing from his maturer exertions; but when we read in his Preface, that he is anxious it should be generally known that sufficient time and application were bestowed upon this work" ("The Borough"), and that no material alteration would be effected by delay," we confess that we dare no longer indulge the prospect of any material amendment in his style of composition, and fear that time may rather confirm his errors than extirpate them. |