George Crabbe

“ The "pleasant land" of the pastoral poets was one of which George Crabbe, not unjustly, "thought scorn."
"The village life, and every care that reigns O'er youthful peasants and declining swains, What labour yields, and what, that labour past, Age, in its hour of languor, finds at last; What form the real picture of the poor, Demand a song—the Muse can give no more. Fled are those times when in harmonious strains The rustic poet praised his native plains: No shepherds now, in smooth alternate verse, Their country's beauty or their nymphs' rehearse ”

“ A year later Crabbe installed a deputy in the surgery and paid his first visit to London. He lodged in Whitechapel, took lessons in midwifery and walked the hospitals. Returning to Aldeburgh after nine months—in 1777—he found his practice gone. Even as a doctor for the poor he was an utter failure, poetry having probably taken too firm a hold upon his mind. At times he suffered hunger, so utterly unable was he to earn a livelihood. After three years of this, in 1780 Crabbe paid his second visit to London, enabled thereto by the loan of five pounds from Dudley Lang, a local magnate. ”

“ But Crabbe has none of the Grace of the new dispensation, if he has some glimpses of its Law. He sails so close to the wind of poetry that he is sometimes merely prosaic and often nearly so. His conception of life is anti-idealist almost to pessimism, and he has no fancy. The "jewels five words long" are not his: indeed there clung to him a certain obscurity of expression which Johnson is said to have good-naturedly smoothed out in his first work to some extent, but from which he never got quite free. ”

“ Yet Johnson could never have written the passages which earned Crabbe his fame. The great lexicographer knew man in general much better than Crabbe did; but he nowhere shows anything like Crabbe's power of seizing and reproducing man in particular. Crabbe is one of the first and certainly one of the greatest of the "realists" who, exactly reversing the old philosophical signification of the word, devote themselves to the particular only. ”

“ Some people are born tidy and some are born untidy. We were bom untidy, and if good people, taking pity on us, try to make us tidy we get lost. It was so with George Crabbe. He lived in magnificent disorder, papers and books and letters all over the floor, piled on every chair, surging up to the ceiling. ”

“ Before the swains with bolder spirit press'd;
With looks less timid made his passion known,
And pleased by manners most unlike her own;
Loud though in love, and confident though young;
Fierce in his air, and voluble of tongue;
By trade a tailor, though, in scorn of trade,
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He served the 'Squire, and brush'd the coat he made:
Yet now, would Phœbe her consent afford,
Her slave alone, again he'd mount the board;
With her should years of growing love be spent,
And growing wealth—she sigh'd and look'd consent. ”

“ Book IV. is devoted to the Adventures of Richard, which begin with his residence with his mother near a small sea-port (evidently Aldeburgh) ; and here we once more read of the boy, George Crabbe, watching and remembering every aspect of the storms, and making friends with the wives and children of the sailors and the smugglers:
"I loved to walk where none had walk'd before, About the rocks that ran along the shore; Or far beyond the sight of men to stray, And take my pleasure when I lost my way ”

“ Crabbe died at Trowbridge on the 3rd of February 1832, and was buried in Trowbridge church, where an ornate monument was placed over his tomb in August 1833.
Never was any poet at the same time so great and continuous a favourite with the critics, and yet so conspicuously allowed to fall into oblivion by the public. ”

“ Loth to retire, yet trembling to advance, 160 Appear’d the nymph, and in her gentle guest Stirr’d soft emotions till the hour of rest. Sweet was his sleep, and in the morn again He felt a mixture of delight and pain: “How fair, how gentle,” said the ’squire, “how meek, And yet how sprightly, when disposed to speak! Nature has bless’d her form, and Heaven her mind, But in her favours Fortune is unkind; Poor is the maid—nay, poor she cannot prove Who is enrich’d with beauty, worth, and love.” 170 The ’squire arose, with no precise intent To go or stay—uncertain what he meant. ”

“ John, thou hast made thy wife a Jezebel. See! on her bosom rests the sign of sin, The glaring proof of naughty thoughts within; What? ’tis a cross; come hither—as a friend, 240 Thus from thy neck the shameful badge I rend.” “Rend, if you dare,” said Dighton; “you shall find A man of spirit, though to peace inclined; Call me ungrateful! have I not my pay At all times ready for the expected day?— To share my plenteous board you deign to come, Myself your pupil, and my house your home; And shall the persons who my meat enjoy Talk of my faults, and treat me as a boy? ”

“ In thoughtless joy he reels away his life,
Nor dreads that worst of ills, a noisy wife.
Of late I sat within the jangling bar,
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And heard my Rib's hoarse thunder from afar;
Careless I spoke, and, when she found me drunk,
She breath'd one Curse, and then away she slunk,
Oh! place me, Jove, where none but women come,
And thunders worse than thine afflict the room;
Where one eternal Nothing flutters round,
And senseless [titt'rings] sense of mirth confound;
Or lead me bound to Garret, babel-high,
Where frantic Poet rolls his crazy eye ”

“ On powers unseen, the good and ill, she dwelt, And the poor boy mysterious terrors felt; From frightful dreams, he, waking, sobb’d in dread, Till the good lady came to guard his bed. The father wish’d such errors to correct, But let them pass in duty and respect. But more it grieved his worthy mind to see That Stephen never would a farmer be; In vain he tried the shiftless lad to guide, 130 And yet ’twas time that something should be tried. He at the village-school perchance might gain All that such mind could gather and retain ”

“ Two eminent English poets who must be reckoned moderns though each produced characteristic verse before the end of the eighteenth century, George Crabbe and William Wordsworth, have shared the common fate of those writers who, possessing a very moderate power of self-criticism, are apparently unable to discriminate between their good work and their bad. ”

“ Entering (as his work can testify) into The sorrows and deprivations Of the poorest of his parishioners; And so discharging the duties of his station as a Minister and a magistrate, As to acquire the respect and esteem Of all his neighbours. As a writer, he is well described by a great Contemporary, as 'Nature's sternest painter yet her best.'"
A fresh edition of Crabbe's complete works was at once arranged for by John Murray, to be edited by George Crabbe, the son, who was also to furnish the prefatory memoir. The edition appeared in 1834, in eight volumes. ”

“ I now come to my ninth, and last, name among those East Anglian worthies whom I feel that we have a particular right to canonize—George Crabbe—“though Nature’s sternest painter yet the best,” as Byron described him. Now it may be frankly admitted that few of us read Crabbe to-day. He has an acknowledged place in the history of literature, but there pretty well even well-read people are content to leave him. “What have our literary critics been about that they have suffered such a writer to drop into neglect and oblivion?” asks a recent Quarterly Reviewer. He does not live as Cowper p. ”

“ Slow pass'd the days of the successless year;
Still in these gloomy hours, my brother then
Had glorious views, unseen by prosperous men:
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And when thy heart has felt its wish denied,
What gracious texts hast thou to grief applied;
Till thou hast enter'd in thine humble bed,
By lofty hopes and heavenly musings fed;
Then I have seen thy lively looks express
The spirit's comforts in the man's distress.
"Then didst thou cry, exulting, 'Yes, 'tis fit,
'Tis meet and right, my heart! that we submit;'
And wilt thou, Abel, thy new pleasures weigh
Against such triumphs?—Oh! repent and pray. ”

“ Whom suppliants angle, and poor praise controls;
She, yet unskill'd in all but fancy's dream,
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Sang to the woods, and Mira was her theme.
But, when she sees a titled nothing stand
The ready cipher of a trembling land—
Not of that simple kind that, placed alone,
Are useless, harmless things, and threaten none;
But those which, join'd to figures, well express
A strengthen'd tribe that amplify distress,
Grow in proportion to their number great,
And help each other in the ranks of state—
When this and more the pensive Muses see,
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They leave the vales and willing nymphs to thee ”

“ The Aldeburgh folk could not reverence as priest a man they had known as a day labourer. Crabbe again appealed to Burke, who persuaded the duke of Rutland to make him his chaplain (1782) , and Crabbe took up his residence in Belvoir Castle, accompanying his new patron to London, when Lord Chancellor Thurlow (who told him he was “as like Parson Adams as twelve to the dozen”) gave him the two livings of Frome St Quentin and Evershot in Dorsetshire, worth together about £200 a year. In May 1783 Crabbe’s poem The Village was published by Dodsley, and in December of this year he married Sarah Elmy. ”

“ It is nearly a century since George Crabbe, then a young man of five-and-twenty, put three pounds in his pocket and started from his native town of Aldborough, with a box of clothes and a case of surgical instruments, to make his fortune in London. Few men have attempted that adventure with less promising prospects. ”

“ Daily on costly food and generous Wines,
Who feels no Pain, who no Complaint can make,
But only feels he can no Pleasure take—
And he will answer, that ’tis Fortune’s Will;
He may be weary, but he must be still.
Oh! had they told thee, when thou sat’st with pride,
And grateful joy, at Madam Johnson’s side,
And heard the lisping Flora, blue-eyed maid,
Bid thee be neither bashful nor afraid,
When Mrs. Jane thy burning blush had raised,
Because thy modesty and sense she praised—
Could’st thou have seen that in that place a room
Should be thine own, thy house, thy hall, thy home ”

“ Scornful he smil’d, but felt no more than Scorn;
For why, when Fortune plac’d her State so low,
In useless Spite his lofty Malice show?
Why in a Mischief of the meaner Kind,
Exhaust the Vigour of a rancorous Mind?
But soon as Fame the Fairy-gifts proclaim’d,
Quick-rising Wrath his ready Soul inflam’d;{200}
To swear by Vows, that ev’n the Wicked tie,
The Nymph should weep her varied Destiny;
That every Gift, that now appear’d to shine
In her fair Face and make her Smiles divine,
Should all, the Poison of his Magic prove,
And they should scorn her, whom she sought for Love. ”

“ Look’d joyful love, and softly said, ‘Amen.’
Now of that Vine he would no more increase,
Those playful Branches now disturb his peace;
Them he beholds around his table spread,
But finds, the more the Branch, the less the Bread;
And while they run his humble walls about,
They keep the sunshine of good-humour out.
Cease, man, to grieve! thy Master’s lot survey,
Whom Wife and Children, thou and thine obey;
A Farmer proud, beyond a Farmer’s pride,
Of all around the envy or the guide ”

“ For they, so far from following as we lead, Make that a cause why they will not proceed. Man will not follow where a rule is shown, But loves to take a method of his own; Explain the way with all your care and skill, This will he quit, if but to prove he will.— Yet had our Justice honour—and the crowd, Awed by his presence, their respect avow’d. 40 In later years he found his heart incline, More than in youth, to gen’rous food and wine; But no indulgence check’d the powerful love He felt to teach, to argue, and reprove. ”

“ Yet still my days of grief I find;
The former clouds' collected gloom
Still sadden the reflecting mind;
The soul, to evil things consign'd.
Will of their evil some retain;
The man will seem to earth inclined,
And will not look erect again.
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Thus, though elect, I feel it hard
To lose what I possess'd before,
To be from all my wealth debarr'd:—
The brave Sir Eustace is no more.
But old I wax and passing poor,
Stern, rugged men my conduct view;
They chide my wish, they bar my door,
'Tis hard—I weep—you see I do.—
Must you, my friends, no longer stay? ”

“ That we together may the change await, Guides and spectators in each other’s fate; When fellow-pilgrims, we shall daily crave The mutual prayer that arms us for the grave.” 250 Half angry, half in doubt, the lover gazed On the meek maiden, by her speech amazed. “Dinah,” said he, “dost thou respect thy vows? What spousal mean’st thou?—thou art Rupert’s spouse; The chance is mine to take, and thine to give; But trifling this, if we together live. Can I believe, that, after all the past, Our vows, our loves, thou wilt be false at last? Something thou hast—I know not what—in view ”

“ Nor found that want of wealth could make him poor.
No, he in fact was rich; nor could he move,
But he was follow'd by the looks of love;
All he had suffer'd, every former grief,
Made those around more studious in relief;
He saw a cheerful smile in every face,
And lost all thoughts of error and disgrace.
Pleasant it was to see them in their walk
Round their small garden, and to hear them talk;
Free are their children, but their love refrains
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From all offence—none murmurs, none complains;
Whether a book amused them, speech or play,
Their looks were lively, and their hearts were gay ”