Henry Crabb Robinson

“ Redgauntlet dated from 1824.
"In a calenture." A calenture is a form of fever at sea in which the sufferer believes himself to be surrounded by green fields, and often leaps overboard. Wordsworth describes one in "The Brothers."
"A Recluse"—Wordsworth's promised poem, that was never completed. First printed in 1888.
Inachus' daughter was Io, persecuted by a malignant insect sent by Juno.
"Henry Crabb." Crabb Robinson was a personal friend of Goethe's. He had spent some days with him at Weimar in the summer of 1829. Goethe told Robinson that he admired Lamb's sonnet "The Family Name." ”

“ His literary tastes and intimacies, together with his knowledge of German university life, led the trustees to confide to him, in 1867, the editing of Crabb Robinson's ‘Diaries.’ The work appeared in 1869, and a third edition was called for in 1872; but only a small portion of the Crabb Robinson papers (now in Dr. Williams's Library) was utilised. ”

“ Within the church is a beautiful recumbent figure of the poet, which every traveller should see.
Crabb Robinson.
I had occasion to name Crabb Robinson [7] as one of the party accompanying Southey on his last visit to the Continent. Robinson was a man whom it is well to know something of, by reason [25] of his Boswellian Reminiscences, and because—though of comparatively humble origin—he grew to be an excellent type of the well-bred, well-read club-man of his day—knowing everybody who was worth knowing, from Mrs. ”

“ Wordsworth.... Not much was said about his (W.'s) new volume of Poems. He himself spoke of The Brownie's Cell as his favourite" [Pg 25] (vol. ii. p. 162) . In the following year Mr. Crabb Robinson himself visited Scotland, and wrote thus on the 16th September:—"Being on the western side of Loch Lomond, opposite the Mill at Inversnaid, some women kindled a fire, the smoke of which was to be a signal for a ferryboat. No ferryman came; and a feeble old man offering himself as a boatman, I intrusted myself to him. I asked the women who he was. ”

“ Seats were hard to find, but in the end they obtained them on a stand back of third base. Mr. Robinson settled his stick between his knees and looked about him. The triangle of stands was crowded with excited men and women; men in straw hats and all sorts of vivid shirts, women in cool cotton dresses, with here and there a touch of crimson ribbon. The field stretched away green and level as a carpeted floor to the river and the boathouse. Princeton was at the bat. Mr. Robinson turned to his new acquaintance. ”

“ Well," continued the crab, "that's a good 'un, that is. My good chap you must be quite out of your senses. Why, not only will I hand over the baby oyster to the lobster, but I intend also to have my supper off that tough old idiot of a whelk, who reckons he's going to get off scot-free, and old mother blue point, too, if I can find her," and then, as an afterthought, "and you, old marrow-bones, wouldn't make half a bad tit-bit if I could get hold of you," and he made a horrid dash at me as he spoke. ”

“ He lived at Stathern and Muston in Leicestershire the happy, domestic life of a country clergyman, returning to Suffolk when his wife inherited a share in the estate of her uncle, Mr. Tovell, at Parham.
In 1807 Crabbe appeared once more as a poet with “The Parish Register,” and from this time his fame was unquestioned. “The Borough” followed and then “The Tales.” [Pg 62] But I need not weary you with dates and details. A new generation arose to encourage Crabbe. His first poems had been hailed by Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Johnson, and Fox; his later by Scott, Byron, Lord Holland, and Rogers. ”

“ One word was all he said. "Trombones," he said.
That evening, at "The Chrysalis" again,
We smoked and looked at one another's eyes,
And we were glad. The world had scattered ways
For us to take, we knew; but for the time
That one snug room where the big beech logs roared smooth
Defiance to the cold rough rain outside
Sufficed. There were no scattered ways for us
That we could see just then, and we were glad:
We were glad to be on earth, and we rejoiced
No less for Captain Craig that he was gone. ”

“ Those Robinson fellows are just the same as you--two legs, two arms, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Go at it right and you can put them out of the play. Remember before you give up that the other man's just as tuckered as you are, maybe more so. Your captain says we can win out. I think he knows more about it than we fellows on the side-line do. Now go ahead, get together, put all you've got into it, and see whether your captain knows what he's talking about. Let's have a cheer for Erskine!"
Neil stood up on the bench and got into that cheer in great shape. ”

“ Crabbe had arrived in London in April, and by the end of the month we learn from the journal that he was engaged upon a work in prose, "A Plan for the Examination of our Moral and Religious Opinions," and also on a poetical "Epistle to Prince William Henry," afterwards William IV., who had only the year before entered the navy as midshipman, but had already seen some service under Rodney. The next day's entry in the diary tells how he was not neglecting other possible chances of an honest livelihood. ”

“ And then, little by little, it transpired that this mysterious war party, venturing to the south bank of the Platte, did not exceed half a dozen braves. Crabb got back in thirty-six hours, with five exhausted men. They had followed the wheel tracks over the open prairie and into the foothills far to the Northwest, emboldened by the evidence of there being but few ponies in the original bandit escort. ”

“ Plainly he was in great uncertainty of mind.
“Perhaps I have nothing to tell,” he said at last.
“A man does not attempt to murder detectives unless he has a crime to conceal.”
“That is true,” he said, nodding his head; “very just and true.”
There was nothing to be gained by a long bargaining of secrets with him. Whatever his business he could speedily discover mine if he chose. If I were honest with him he might return the confidence.
“I am arranging for the escape of Julius Craig, now doing his time in the prison yonder,” I told him.
“Julius Craig!” he echoed, with wild eyes. ”

“ 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 was son of a customs' man, of small, turbulent character, and the boy had starveling education; he picked up so much as qualified him at length for surgeon (or doctor, as we say) in that small shore town, but gained little: so, threw all behind him—a girl he loved, and a town he did not love—and with three guineas in his pocket, and a few manuscript poems, set off for London. He was there, indeed, in the very times we have talked of; when wits met at the Turk's Head, when Fox thundered in Parliament, when Sterne was just dead ”

“ But the younger Crabbe's account of his father's verses in 'Wheble's Magazine for 1772' does not tally with the actual contents of the volume for 1772 of The Lady's Magazine which has been used for the present edition. It is possible, of course, though there is no evidence to support the supposition, that The Lady's Magazine published by Wheble was continued at all events till 1772, parallel to The Lady's Magazine published by Robinson and Roberts, with which in 1770 it had been in some measure blended. It is equally possible that the younger Crabbe made some mistake or mistakes. ”

“ We drove on in silence for a while, and then the old man rose, kneeling upon the cushions of the back seat.
“Here comes the sun, Julius Craig,” he said. “The mists are scattering, and the world comes peeping through to welcome you back to freedom. Women and wine and cards—does the old spirit stir within you?”
“And who the devil may you be?” asked the convict, turning upon him. ”

“ The union of Crabbe with Miss Elmy conferred eventually upon the poet, doctor, and apothecary, the possession of the estate of “yeoman” Tovell—Parham Lodge. A maiden sister of the squire’s, dying, left him a considerable sum of money. The loving, waiting Sarah proved a faithful, though some might say a somewhat domineering, wife, as the following quotation intimates:—
“I can screw Crabbe up or down, just like an old fiddle,” this amiable woman was wont to say; and throughout her life she amply demonstrated the assertion. ”

“ Crabbe's poetry is like a museum, or curiosity-shop: every thing has the same posthumous appearance, the same inanimateness and identity of character. If Bloomfield is too much of the Farmer's Boy, Crabbe is too much of the parish beadle, an overseer of the country poor. He has no delight beyond the walls of a workhouse, and his officious zeal would convert the world into a vast infirmary. He is a kind of Ordinary, not of Newgate, but of nature. ”

“ It was probably soon after the publication of The Library that Crabbe paid his first visit to Beaconsfield, and was welcomed as a guest by Burke's wife and her niece as cordially as by the statesman himself. Here he first met Charles James Fox and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and through the latter soon became acquainted with Samuel Johnson, on whom he called in Bolt Court. Later in the year, when in London, Crabbe had lodgings hard by the Burkes in St. James's Place, and continued to be a frequent guest at their table, where he met other of Burke's distinguished friends, political and literary. ”

“ The life of Crabbe the poet as told by his son is an admirable piece of biography, and the Rev. George Crabbe, junr., was to my mind at least as good a realist in prose as his father in poetry. I wonder if I am right in conjecturing that you in New England had at the same time old farmers not very unlike Mr. Tovell who lived in prosperous simplicity like the old Suffolk Yeoman, rough in manner, coarse in expression, and blunt in sensibility, yet with an honest independence of character which redeemed much which to our eyes may seem repulsive. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Crabbe waited on the Chancellor with the letter, but Thurlow was, or affected to be, annoyed by the request. It was a thing, he exclaimed with an oath, that he would not do "for any man in England." However, when the young and beautiful duchess later appealed to him in person, he relented, and presented Crabbe to the two livings of Muston in Leicestershire, and Allington in Lincolnshire, both, within sight of Belvoir Castle, and (as the crow flies) not much more than a mile apart. To the rectory house of Muston, Crabbe brought his family in February 1789. ”

“ Worn with life's cares, love yet was love."
Crabbe was inducted to the living of Trowbridge on the 3rd of June 1814, and preached his first sermon two days later. His two sons followed him, as soon as their existing engagements allowed them to leave Leicestershire. The younger, John, who married in 1816, became his father's curate, and the elder, who married a year later, became curate at Pucklechurch, not many miles distant. As Crabbe's old cheerfulness gradually returned he found much congenial society in the better educated classes about him. His reputation as a poet was daily spreading. ”

“ On 25, Feb. 1789 he undertook the pastorate at his native place, but his theology (he was probably an Arian) was too latitudinarian for the congregationalists of Wattesfield; he resigned the charge on 15 Aug. 1790, and became minister at Royston. The more orthodox portion of the congregation quietly seceded. Crabb was much beloved by his own people, and esteemed by all. Robert Hall speaks of his character as ‘too well established to have anything to hope from praise, or to fear from censure.’ He died after a short illness on 25 Dec. ”

“ But his longing for meat was still very great. "I will try to make a bow and arrow," he said. No sooner said than done. He bent a long piece of tough, young wood and stretched between the ends a cord twisted out of the fiber taken from the cocoanut shell. He then sought for a piece of wood for arrows. He split the ends with his flint knife and fastened in splinters of stone. At the other end he fastened on some feathers found on the ground. The arrows flew through the air with great swiftness. "They will go far enough," thought Robinson, "if I could only hit anything." ”

“ Crabb walked the deck in high jubilation. He looked at his watch. Three o’clock! If McFee had followed his instructions Dicky Bowles and Juliet Hazard were man and wife. He had nicely figured his chances. To Geltman he was Dr. Woolf. To his crew he was Mr. Crabb taking an unfortunate relative [26] for an airing; to Dicky Bowles he was the rescuer of forlorn damsels and the trump of good fellows.
Crabb was fully prepared to carry the villainy through to the end. Of one thing he was certain, the sooner his guest was off the Blue Wing and safely landed the better. ”