English Men of Letters: Crabbe

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something more than that so many of his Tales dealt with sad instances of human frailty. At that moment, and for three years longer, there hung over Crabbe's family life

ems I have been a

ng read them when

and, by the help

t time what was bes

e him to Goldsmith

sizer of Goldsmith,

sion. His merit is

describing things cl

difference between

threw a sunshine ov

our water-colour a

and a beauty not to

illiant or beautif

bbe's have a gloom

f mist, or of clouds, but the dark and

ry lights have a g

lained by h

s poetry. But the above passage throws light upon a period in Crabbe's history to which his son naturally does little more than refer in general and guarded terms. In

be was able to visit Dudley North, and other of his old friends, and to enter to some extent into the gaieties of the town, but also, as always, taking advantage of the return to London to visit and help the poor and distressed, not unmindful of his own want and misery in the great city thirty years before. The family re

however, and returned to the duties of his parish, and to a life of still deeper loneliness. But his old friends at Belvoir Castle once more came to his deliverance. Within a short time the Duke offered him the living of Trowbridge in Wiltshire, a small manufacturing town, on the line (as we should describe it today

"diversity of religious sentiment" had produced "a coolness in some of his parishioners, which he felt the more painfully because, whatever might be their difference of opinion, he was ever ready to help and oblige them all by medical and other aid to the utmost extent of h

ity about Crabbe; and his politics, such as they were, had been formed in a different school from that of the county families. A busy country town was likely to furnish interests and distractions of a different kind. But before finally quitting the neighbourhood he visited a sister a

hold again

joy, the sou

n view the

st never

d's song that

t gloom-thi

e mind her s

ain must

hines that w

my token,

in it shine

ar eyes can s

from this

t now the b

s made its c

buried in

nting, and the verse that follows was found long afterwards written on a paper i

o worn, as

pale, is y

such it wa

's cares, love

intelligent neighbours of a class different from any he had yet been thrown with. And yet once more, as his son has to admit, he failed to secure the allegiance of the church-going parishioners. His immediate predecessor, a curate in charge, had been one of those in whom a more passionate missionary zeal had been stirred by the Methodist movement-"endeared to the more serious inhabitants by warm zeal and a powerful talent for preaching extempore." The parishioners had made urgent appeal to the noble patron to appoint this man to the benefice, and the Duke's disregard of their petition had produced much bitterness in the parish. Then, again, in Crabbe there was a "lay" element, which had probably not been found in his predecess

"inspired feelings of no ordinary warmth" in the fair objects of "his vain devotion." One such incident all but ended in a permanent engagement. A MS. quotation from the poet's Diary, copied in the margin of FitzGerald's volume, may possibly refer to this occasion. Under date of September 22 occurs this entry: "Sidmouth. Miss Ridout. Declaration. Acceptance." But under October 5 is written the ominous word, "Mr. Ridout.

hou never s

purpose ne

o feeling f

ain'd, despis

is known to have complained that on a similar occasion Crabbe had exhibited so much warmth of manner that she "felt quite frightened." His son entirely supports the same view as to his father's almost demonstratively affectionate manner towards ladies who interested him, and who, perhaps owing to his

d since my removin

the loneliness is b

this is only at cer

nsiderable distances

er, but all dear, v

ssociate; not as des

art of society, but a

, not knowing enoug

he everyday conce

e minds with which I

ust; and of me, I

not be u

mitted him. Trowbridge was only a score or so of miles from Bath, and there were many noblemen's and gentlemen's seats in the country round. In this same county of Wilts, and not very far away, at his vicarage of Bremhill, was William Lisle Bowles, the graceful poet whose sonnets five-and-twenty years before had first roused to poetic utterance the young Coleridge and Charles Lamb when at Christ's Hospital. Through Bowles, Crabbe was introduced to the noble family at Bowood, where the third Marquis of Lansdowne del

l was specially polite to him, and really attracted by him. Crabbe visited the theatres, and was present at the farewell banquet given to John Kemble. Through Rogers and Campbell he was introduced to John Murray of Albemarle Street, who later became his publisher. He sat for his portrait to Pickersgill and Phillips, and saw the painting by the latter hanging on the Academy walls when dining at their annual banquet. Again, through an i

ife is crowned

with its own

thee, O Crabbe

Hampstead's b

mums in Covent Garden Crabbe seems to have alterna

of manuscript on which he was at work-the collection of stories to be subsequently issued as Tales of the Hall. Crabbe had resolved, in the face of whatever distractions, to write if possible a fixed amount every day. More than once in the Diary occur such entries as: "My thirty lines done; but not well, I fear." "Thirty lines to-day, but not yesterday-must work up." This anticipation of a method made famous later in the century by Anthony Trollope may account (as also in Trollope's case) for certain marked inequalities in the merit

n which Crabbe was still indulging, even in the vortex of fashionable gaieties. We gather throughout that the ladies he met interested him quite as much, or even more, than

ntimate conversati

e. They mean to g

but will not stay l

ne at Curzon Stree

es the day more c

not! Go to Mr. Roger

Miss Rogers. Prom

ne there, and pu

s in the morning wh

la

in a multitude. For he seems to have been equally charmed with Rogers's sister, and William Spencer's daughter, and the

ng by the intellectual stimulus of his visit to London, as well as by the higher standards of versification that he had met with, even in writers inferior to himself. The six weeks in London had given him advantages he had never enjoyed before. In his early days under Burke's roof he had learned much from Burke himself, and from Johnson and Fox, but he was then only a promising beginner. Now, thirty-five years later, he met Rogers, Wordsworth, Campbell, Moore, as social equals, and having, like them, won a p

Murray had made a very liberal offer for the new poems, and the copyright of all Crabbe's previous works. For these, together, Murray had offered three thousand pounds. Strangely enough, Rogers was at first dissatisfied with the offer, holding that the sum should be paid for the new volumes alone. He and a friend (possibly Campbell), who had conducted the negotiation, accordingly went off to the house of

was that Mr. Rogers

friend from his su

ell remember, in A

with more solicitude, or heard words

ct being mentioned

r. Crabbe, and look

rather pressed, I re

n appointment on

s insisted that I

s, and enjoy the pl

suspense. We found

pecting the worst;

agreeable intellige

he bills for ￡3000,

ut delay, deposit the

them with him to T

hn. They would har

if they did not se

idge, a friend at

. Everett, the bank

loosely in his waist

ake charge of them

here was no fear,' he

st show them to

s poems, and these were slowly but surely winning him a public of his own, intellectual and thoughtful if not as yet numerous. John Keats had made two appearances, in 1817 and 1818, and the year following the publication of Crabbe's Tales of the Hall was to add to them the Odes and other poems constituting the priceless volume of 1820-Lamia and other Poems. Again, for the lovers of fiction-whom, as I have said, Crabbe had attracted quite as strongly as the lovers of verse-Walter Scott had produced five or six of his finest novels, and was adding to the circle of his admirers daily. By the side of this fascinating prose, and still more fascinating metrical versatility, Crabbe's resolute and plodding couplets might often seem tame and wearisome. Indeed, at this juncture, the rhymed heroic couplet, as a vehicle for the poetry of imagination, was tottering to its fall, though it lingered for many years as the orthodox form for

at Mr. Rogers sh

ire. I am more ind

of, if I had not t

atisfaction to find

picture, and such

llies come into my

win

n in the touching and often beautiful couplets of Rogers, a poet as neglected today as Crabbe. Rogers

the thre

kissed off as

enters, ther

, when all wit

gel o'er his

easures, and hi

es read his; h

es, all his tho

-ever on the

rth, and sorrow

usic slumbers

rapture by the

rts-touch them

elodies unhe

opposite. But there is room in poetry for both points of view, though the absolute-the