English Men of Letters: Crabbe

81

ter, in October 1817, he makes reference to these Tales, already in preparation. He tells his correspondent that "Remembrances" was the title for them proposed by his friends. We learn

e the manners of village inhabitants. My people are of superior classes, though not the most elevated; and, with a few exceptions, are of educated and cultivated minds and habits." In making this change Crabbe was also aware that some kind of unity must be given to those new studies of human life. And he found at

has retired to this country seat, which stands upon the site of a humbler dwelling where George had been born and spent his earliest years. The old home of his youth had subsequently passed into the hands of a man of means, who had added to it, improved the

dvances. George, hearing of this through a common friend, cordially responds, and Richard is invited to spend a few weeks at Binning Hall. The two brothers, whose bringing up had been so different, and whose ideas and politics were far removed, nevertheless find their mutual companionship very pleasant, and every evening over their port wine relate their respective adventures and experiences, while George has also much to tell of his friends and neighbours around him. The clergyman of the parish, a former fellow of his college, often makes a third at these meetings; and thus a sufficient variety of topic is insured. The tales that these three tell, with the conversations arising out of them, form the subject matter of these Tales of the Hall. Crabbe devised a very pleasant means of bringing the brother's visit to a close. When the time originally proposed f

e constructed out of a humbler farmhouse by additions and alterations in the building and its surroundings, which was precisely the fate which had befallen Mr. Tovell's old house which had come to the Crabbe family,

ancient, ve

ounded by a m

dded by a sq

valued acres

oms, whence he c

vements as the

moat, he took

park and bade t

of his recollections, which include the story of a school-fellow, who having some liking for art but not much talent, finds his ambitions defeated, and dies of chagrin in consequence. This was in fact the true story of a

er!' some, cont

nothing of th

air life, to charg

he bade them n

own, but all th

pure advice hi

not, or he w

nt a favourite

ow, but learn

ust not dicta

not to bring the

them that they

that justice

med to disagr

'd, and his the

ted, void of

nmistakably that of a personal grievance, even if the p

sea-port (evidently Aldeburgh); and here we once more read of the boy, George Crabbe, watching and rememberi

k where none ha

ks that ran a

the sight of

leasure when

mine to trace t

ossy moor tha

ourite station

murmurs of t

und beside ex

pwing, or th

notes my fanci

e dreams of s

last in the series, and perhaps the most painful of all, Smugglers, and Poachers was told to Crabbe by Sir Samuel Romilly, whom he had met at Hampstead, only a few weeks before Romilly's own tragic death. Probably other tales, not referred to by Crabbe or his son, were also encountered by the poet in his intercourse with his parishioners, or submitted to him by his friends. We might infer this from the singular inequality, in i

of forty. The position is not unimaginable, though it may be uncommon. The idea of marrying one who had been to her as a favourite child, seems to the widow in the first instance repulsive and almost criminal. But it turns out that there is another reason in the background for her not re-entering the marriage state, which she discloses to the ardent youth. It appears that the widow had once had a beloved brother who had died early. Those two had been brought up by an infidel father, who had impressed on his children the absurdity of all such ideas as immortality. The children had often discussed and pondered over this subject together, and had made a compact that whichever of them died first should, if possible, appear to the survivor, and thus solve the awful problem of a future life. The brother

take such a story seriously, but it must have interested Crabbe deeply, for he has expended upon it much of his finest power of analysis, and his most careful writing. As we have seen, the subject of dreams had always had a fascination for him, of a kind not unconnected perhaps with the opium-habit. The story, however it was to be treated, was unpromising; but as the dénouement was what it proved to

ot of years,-

se lips, can ma

om chill'd? are c

ung, or I her

et, and that wil

not; Death's

er than Love's

ll inequali

rank, that mo

oung or old, i

ers, he confo

ir, or dark, or

sprightly-Lov

e the pensive

here, takes some

ndant good a

want a compen

t of years-Love

ls, from hers, a

young lover, who was to turn out in the sequel an unparalleled "cad." But t

their effect on the reader, in the intensity of their gloom. Such stories as that of Lady Barbara, Delay has Danger, The Sisters, Ellen, Smugglers and Poachers, Richard's story of Ruth, and the elder brother's account of his own early attachment, with its miserable sequel-all these are of a poignant painfulness. Human crime, error, or selfishness working life-long misery to others-this is the theme to

is not sorrow

e love, that

or the glory

uman kind, and

o many of them not, on the whole, with a livelier faith in human nature. We

fortunes of his characters is aroused, he rises at times to real eloquence, if never to poetry's supremest heights. Moreover, the poems contain passages of description which, for truth to Nature, touched by real imagination, are

ll in fond disc

lover to his

ad pass'd, to grie

and looked wi

t that fill'd t

ood before, a

lories of the

ted, languid,

ind upon the

ream curl'd onw

ill blew harshl

ide the youth

dark intens

wind alone was

pause of natu

ng are rear'd, a

ie, grow negl

ft he saw the

ist that hung

llows, gatheri

flights, and twit

n-sheaf stood, t

sickly sun; All these were

im, the likene

nd-he ponder'

anny with a bo

the description is either so much above the level of the narrative, or below it, as to be almost startling. In the very first pa

native village

oy had its att

rook beneath, whe

fill the holl

mpatient thirst

un upon the

weariness, whe

iew the founta

liss-and feel,

se in that swe

ndicate the elder brother's increasing interest in t

eeded, not so

arnest, and to

nd some differenc

pastor cord

they who would

n, find their

ew'd as liberal

ix'd his princ

o whom he had been the accidental means of rendering a vital service in rescuing her and a companion from the "rude uncivil kine" in a meadow. To the image of this girl, though he never set eyes on her again for many years, he had remained faithful. The next meeting, when at last it came, brought the most terrible of disillusions. Sent by his chief to transact certain business with a wealthy banker ("Clutterbuck & Co."), the young merchant calls at a villa where the banker at times resided, and finds that the object of his old love and his fondest dreams is there installed as the banker's mistress. She is greatly moved at the sight of the youthful lover of old days, who, with more chivalry than prudence, offers forgiveness if she will break off thi

was the fi

flame that

is the la

l bosom's s

tween is no

from thy th

day that ga

s sweet ret

all that ha

nought is

dangerous

ildering wo

n every fau

tender loo

nought in

meet, and th

yric, in the story called The Sisters, might have come straight from the pen which has given us "

on the closest terms of friendship, which was continued with George Crabbe's son (a third George), who became ultimately rector of Merton in Norfolk. It was at his house, it will be remembered, that FitzGerald died suddenly in the summer of 1883. Through this long association with the family FitzGerald was gradually acquiring information concerning the poet, which even the son's Biography had not supplied. Readers of FitzGerald's delightful Letters will remember that there is no name more constantly referred to than that of Crabbe. Whether writing to Fanny Kemble, or Frederick Tennyson, or Lowell, he is constantly quoting him, and recommending him. During the thirty years that followed Crabbe's death his fame had been on the decline, and poets of different and greater gifts had taken his place. FitzGerald had noted this fact with ever-increasing regret, and longed to revive the taste for a poet of whose merits he had himself no doubt. He discerned moreover that even those who had read in their youth The Village and The Borough had been repelled by the length, and p

ared for that ingredient, because the personages are the lawless and neglected poor of a lonely seaport. It is because, when he moves no longer among these, he yet finds vice and misery quite as abundant in "a village with its tidy homestead, and well-to-do tenants, within easy reach of a thriving country-town," that a certain shock is given to the reader. He discovers that all the evil passions intrude (like pale Death) into the comfortab

whatever shape

our over-crowded

uch critics as Jeff

partiality or inferio

w so great an authorit

ity, so unaccoun

d hose that she is s

only man whom she

nd Byron are but unae

sworth who was suff

e sacred brotherhoo

o honest to make a

ne on any occasion-

oet's son and biogr

it of your revered f

ous, if not imperti

truth, full as long as anything that ha

e'-a period which, b

olumes except Yarrow R

. And Wordsworth'

less participat

r forgotten brother.

oting from memory t

here the late autum

cience-stricken love

cts upon him; and in

subject Mr. Tennys

; by virtue of that

id to entitle and ca

call imm

uded, which FitzGerald was never weary of citing in his letters, to show his friends how true a poet was

ay, ere yet th

intry wars, the

ellow weed the

rling smoke, fe

d insect settl

nd to recomme

river was a

an slept th' u

garden, as w

ud, and nothing

he whole poem. It is where the elder brother hands over to the younger th

's, and will th

d water! all fo

u soon thy own

deed, and she

our views and p

there to explain

wn thy boys and

ambols when thei

t window shall

e, and smile a

re gravely, hi

childish!' and

ase of Richardson or Wordsworth) from being, as it were, soaked in through the longer process by which the man's peculiar genius works, any abridgement, whether of omission or epitome, will diminish from the effect of the whole." FitzGerald is unquestionably in sight of a truth here. The parallel with Wordsworth is indeed not exact, for the best of Wordsworth's poetry neither requires nor admits of condensation. The Excursion might benefit by omission and compression, but not The Solitary Reaper, nor The Daffodils. But the example of Richardson is fairly in point. Abridgments of Clarissa Harlowe have been attempted, but probably without any effect on the number of its readers. The power of Richardson

rabbe's only answer was "it does not matter." Samuel Rogers had related to Wordsworth a similar experience. "Mr. Rogers once told me that he expressed his regret to Crabbe that he wrote in his later works so much less correctly than in his earlier. 'Yes,' replied he, 'but then I had a reputation to make; now I can afford to relax.'" This is of course very sad, and, as has already been urged, Crabbe's earlier works had the advantage of much criticism, and even correction from his friends. But however this may be, it may fairly be urged that in a "downright" painter of human life, with that passion for realism which Crabbe was one of the first t