English Men of Letters: Crabbe

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laiming, 'Here we are, here we are-little Willy and all!'"-(his parents' seventh and youngest child, then only a few weeks old)-"but my spirits sunk into dismay when, on entering the well-known kitchen, all there seemed desolate, dreary, and silent. Mrs. Tovell and her sister-in-law, sitting by the fireside weeping, did not even rise up to welcom

nancy at the Hall was anything but satisfactory to the village generally. Mr. Tovell had been much given to hospitality, and that of a convivial sort. Such of the neighbours as were of kindred tastes had been in the habit of "dropping in" of an evening two or three times a week, when, if a quorum was present, a bowl of punch would be brewed, and sometimes a second and a third. The substitution for all this of the quiet and decorous family life of the Crabbes was naturally a hoary blow and grave discouragement to the village reveller, and contributed to make Crabbe's life at starting far from happy. His pursuits and inclinations, literary as well as clerical, made such company distasteful; and his wife, who had borne him seven children in nine years, and of these h

g to Parham, he accepted the office of curate-in-charge at Sweffling, the rector, Rev. Richard Turner, being resident at his other living of Great Yarmouth. The curacy of Great Glemham, also within easy reach, was shortly added. Crabbe was still residing at Parham Lodge, but

uninjured. From this time dated "a nervous disorder," which indeed meant a gradual decay of mental power, from which she never recovered; and Crabbe, an ever-devoted husband, tended her with exemplary care till her death in 1813. Southey, writing about Crabbe to his friend, Neville White, in 1808, adds: "It wa

rough a plantation on the eminence in front. The opposite hill rose at the back of it, rich and varied with trees and shrubs scattered irregularly; under this southern hill ran a brook, and on the banks above it were spots of great natural beauty, crowned by whitethorn and oak. Here the purple scented violet perfumed the air, and in one place coloured the ground. On the left of the front in the narrower portion of the glen was the village;

ublic in verse, turned to the less sunny memories of his youth for inspiration. It was not till some years after the appearance of The Parish Reg

ise on botany, which was never to see the light; and during "one or two of his winters in Suffolk," his son relates, "he gave most of his evening hours to the writing of novels, and he brought not less than three such works to a conclusion. The first was entitled 'The Widow Grey,' but I recollect nothing of it except that the principal character was a benevolent humorist, a Dr. Allison. The next was called 'Reginald Glanshaw, or the Man who commanded Success,' a portrait of an assuming, over-bearing, ambitious mind, rendered interesting by some generous vi

d in his wife's decision, and the novels were cremated without a murmur. A somewhat similar fate attended a set of Tales in Verse which, in the year 1799, Crabbe was about to offer to Mr. Hatchard, the publisher, when he wisely took the opinion of his rector at Sweffling, then resident at Yarmouth, the Rev. Richard Turner[3]. This gentleman, whose opinion Crabbe great

Crabbe, in much distress, applied to his friend Dudley North to use influence on his behalf to obtain extension of leave. But the bishop, Dr. Pretyman (Pitt's tutor and friend-better known by the name he afterwards adopted of Tomlins) would not yield, and it was probably owing to pressure from some different quarter that Crabbe succeeded in obtaining leave of absence for four years longer. Dudley North would fain have solved the problem by giving Crabbe one or more of the livings in his own gift in Suffolk

winter of his residence at Rendham (1804-1805), Crabbe produced a poem, in stanzas, of very different character and calibre from anything he had yet written, and as to the origin of which one must go back to some previous incidents in Crabbe's history. His son is always lax as to dates, and often just at those periods when they would

bout his forty-si

lthy than when I f

y period he became s

dicative of a tende

d rather profusely,

he preached his fir

mother foreboded, as

reach very few more

into Suffolk, in pas

the most ala

r, and his doings. Putting that age at six years old, the year would be 1791; and it may be inferred that as the whole family paid a visit of many months to Su

other at the inn,

denly staggered in

he passengers" (proba

had just alighte

cantly, 'Let the gen

y'; for his fall w

ted to his room, and

fter a little examin

gment. 'There is no

rved, 'nor any apop

ns bear the whole

time his health be

n was renovated; a

always inflicts som

y; but to him it wa

htly increasing dose o

generally h

ell be surprised to hear that their author was ever addicted to the opium-habit; still more, that his imagination ever owed anything to its stimulus. But in FitzGerald's copy there is a MS. note, not signed "G.C.

The subject is as follows: The scene "a Madhouse," and the persons a Visitor, a Physician, and a Patient. The visitor has been shown over the establishment, and is on the point of departing weary and depressed at the sight of so much misery, when the physician begs him to stay as they come in sight of the "cell" of a specially

years, I th

, I know no

pon no ha

man, than

would, and a

ired and pr

poor, by g

g lord of Gr

youth and

might be; For sickness,

gave a s

fair, the m

ccustomed

a handsome

upon Sir E

-She was a

o speak her w

show'd the y

, the sera

athed nor loo

upon eart

this fair t

ll that li

two cherub-t

girl, a g

swell my fal

higher my

ere ours wi

ise,-till

as tempted

and fated

rved;-for a

oved, admire

ithin each

ancelled, u

en my God

praise or hu

Word was

t!) it never

betrayer, once his trusted friend. The wretched woman pines and dies, and the two children take some infectious disease and quickly follow. The sufferer turns to his wealth and his ambitions

cup, with e

ides, and dea

he Spirit of Mania takes from him his reason, and drags him through a hell of horriblest imaginings. And it is at this po

oundless pl

sun's last r

mild and

re still, as

n the midst

d pediment

ey moss had

he crumbling

I fix'd, I

or untold y

dreadful Now Endured n

ld evening'

ly-solemn

at time I

sun's sad ra

moment's sl

my commis

h sea and la

no respite

ark broad s

gh bleak and

gth their stre

in a gia

e where those

beams of br

e stoutest

eel, that dr

pure, so co

my frame wi

half-year's

streamers wr

t darkness

upon the ea

d sleep was

toll'd the

me on, whe

t men in c

hom no trav

mine were w

en stare, and

urry throu

ght blinks a

shrinks and

s bell sounds sh

blows-we've

ulchral gr

mbstone pla

ments of m

f various ki

erect their

ickers bound; Some risen

with the

g millions w

dead, and

stay not fo

s woe! ye de

he shrouded

an mortal br

y rise, they

eld by vit

wicked fiend

shadowy troo

etic diction of the eighteenth century, against which Wordsworth made his famous protest, is entirely absent. Then again, the eight-line stanza is something quite different from a mere aggregate of quatrains arranged in pairs. The lines are knit together; sonnet-fashion, by

essions, De Quincey writes: "The sense of space, and in the end the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, etc., were exhibited in proportions so vast as th

rabbe's s

I fix'd, I

or untold y

dreadful Now Endured no

Pole to the Tropics, is common to both experiences. The "ill-favoured o

e tremb

e steeple's qu

centuries at the summit of Pagodas. Sir Eusta

I was: yet

ns to my s

rsued throug

hat petty kn

eed, they said, which the Ibis and the Crocodile trembled at." The morbid inspiration is clearly the same in both cases, and there can be

rsion. There has been throughout present to him the conscience of "a soul defiled with every stain." And at the same moment, under circumstances unexplained, his spiritual ear is

urthen'd wi

way to Zi

l Mercy le

eep, and wa

nows the si

ves the mou

saving gr

heavenly li

l leaves him, "though elect," looking sadly back on his old prosperity, and bearing, but unresigned, the prospect of an old ago spent amid his present gloomy surroundings. An

y friends, n

y all my pl

emember, w

sician and

d hours you

shall requi

or his friend

r love at Grey

e poem ends. To one of its last stanzas Crabbe attached an apologetic note, one of the most remarkable ever penned. It exhibits the struggle that at

ot have happened while the disorder of the brain continued; yet the verses which follow, in a different measure," (Crabbe refers to the hymn) "are not intended to make any religious persuasion appear ridic

f, could only have brought comfort to the soul of a lunatic, is surely as good a proof as the period could produce

y-five eight-lined stanzas, of somewhat complex construction, the accuracy of Crabbe's account is doubtful. If its inspiration was in some degree due to opium, we know from the example of S.T. Coleridge that the opium-habit is not favourable to certainty of memory or the accurate presentation of facts. After Crabbe's death, there was found in one of his many manuscript note-books a copy of verses, undated, entitled The Wo

how, but I

rge and G

those I ne

-silent all; Pale as the

frozen, so

y fears, my

h scorn and

with Coleridge's Pains of Sleep, and it can hardly

re by the appearance of the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Crabbe first met with it in a bookseller's shop in Ipswi

s and pictures new that were opening before him, it showed a true judgment in Crabbe that he never faltered in the conviction that his own opportunity and his own strength lay elsewhere. Not in the romantic or the mystical-not in perfection of form or melody of lyric verse, were his own humbler triumphs to be won. Like Wordsworth, he was to find a sufficiency in the "common growth of mother-earth," though indeed less in her "mirth" than in her "tears," Notwithstanding his Eustace Grey, and World of Dre

bsent from his joint livings about thirteen years, of which four had been spent at Parham, five at Great Glemham, and four at Rendham, all three places lying within a small area, and wi

TNO

est brother was Master of Pembroke, Cambridge, and Dean of Norwich: his youngest son was Sir Charles Turner, a Lord Just

law, before he left England for Naples, he quoted and applied to himself this stanza of Sir Eustace Grey. The i