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CRABBE'S MODERN ANTIQUES.

IT is seventy years ago since George Crabbe published his poem of 'The Village.' His age was twenty-nine. He was then in orders, and was domestic chaplain to the Duke of Rutland. But what a life the young man had passed through, before he had attained that social position !-Born in what was then a wretched fishing hamlet, Aldborough-roughly brought up-imperfectly educated—apprenticed to a surgeon, without means to complete his professional studies-lingering hopelessly about his native place,—he at last resolved to cast himself upon the wide ocean of London, and tempt the fearful dangers that belonged to the career of a literary adventurer. Here he struggled and starved for a year. During the first three months of his London life he sent manuscript poems to the booksellers, Dodsley and Becket, which they civilly declined. He addressed verses to Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who informed him. that his avocations did not leave him leisure to read verses. He sold his clothes and his books, and pawned his watch and his surgical instruments. His one coat was torn, and he mended it himself. He was reduced at last to eightpence, but the brave man never despaired. He had a strong sense of

religion, and he was deeply attached to one who became his wife after thirteen years of untiring constancy. His faith and his love held him up, and kept him out of degradation. At last he wrote a letter to Edmund Burke. It contained this passage: "In April last I came to London, with three pounds, and flattered myself this would be sufficient to supply me with the common necessaries of life till my abilities should procure me more; of these I had the highest opinion, and a poetical vanity contributed to my delusion." Burke saved Crabbe from the fate of many a one who perished in those days, when patronage was dying out; and the various resources for the literary labourer that belong to the extension of reading had scarcely begun to exist. Burke persuaded Dodsley to publish 'The Library;' and the Bishop of Norwich to ordain its author, without a degree. His lot in life was fixed. Thurlow invited him to dinner, and telling him he was "as like Parson Adams as twelve to a dozen," gave him two small livings. He published 'The Village' in 1783, and 'The Newspaper' in 1785. From that time to 1807, the world had forgotten that a real poet, of very original talents, had appeared, for a short season, and was no more heard of. When Crabbe was fiftythree years of age, he again published a poem. This was 'The Parish Register.' 'The Borough' speedily followed. His 'Tales' were in the same vein. Their success was triumphant. The author whose worldly means were reduced to eightpence

in 1780, sold the copyright of his poems, in 1817, to Mr. Murray, for three thousand pounds.

During these twenty-five years, when Crabbe was living in the seclusion of unpretending duty, he was gathering materials for works which are among the most valuable pictures of English life, as it existed in a generation that is recently past. It is the object of this paper to trace some of those representations of Classes that may now be termed obsolete. Old Aubrey says of Shakspere"His comedies will remain wit as long as the English language is understood, for that he handles mores hominum." It is the same with Crabbe. He rarely deals with those individual peculiarities which the early writers used to term "humours." His satire and his pathos are essentially generic. He paints individual characters, and their costume is peculiar; but it is not the mere caprice of the sitter that has settled the costume. It tells of past manners and modes of thought. It is historical. Sir Roger de Coverley is an individualised portrait ;-so Parson Adams; Uncle Toby;-but they are each great general representatives of human nature in their particular age and position. Thus, Crabbe did not wear a cassock, or choose a footman for his travelling companion; but in his simplicity and knowledge, Thurlow saw his resemblance to Parson Adams. Inferior masters paint coxcombities that have no relation to universal modes of thought or action. Shepherds say, that out of a thousand

so my

sheep no one face is alike another; but then, no one face is so peculiar that it is unlike the face of a sheep. Nature, in her individualisation, cleaves to the general. So does all high art.

'The Village' of Crabbe is really his native "Borough' of Aldborough, in Suffolk. It was such a Borough' as England tolerated within the last quarter of a century. Its population, seventy years ago, has been described in lines which forcibly contrast with the Arcadian pictures in Goldsmith's Deserted Village.'

"Where are the swains, who, daily labour done,
With rural games play'd down the setting sun;
Who struck with matchless force the bounding ball,
Or made the ponderous quoit obliquely fall;
While some huge Ajax, terrible and strong,
Engag'd some artful stripling of the throng,
And fell beneath him, foil'd, while far around
Hoarse triumph rose, and rocks return'd the sound?
Where now are these?-Beneath yon cliff they stand,
To show the freighted pinnace where to land;
To load the ready steed with guilty haste,
To fly in terror o'er the pathless waste,
Or, when detected, in their straggling course,
To foil their foes by cunning or by force;
Or, yielding part (which equal knaves demand)
To gain a lawless passport through the land."

Amongst such scenes lived the young Poet;— amongst

"a bold, artful, surly, savage race;

Who, only skill'd to take the finny tribe,

The yearly dinner, or septennial bribe,"

watched the tost vessel from the shore, rejoicing in

the prospect of a wreck. Smuggler, wrecker, venal elector-all are gone from Aldborough. The 'Borough' is disfranchised; wise revenue laws have put an end to the smuggler's vocation. With the smuggler vanished the pedlar who carried about contraband goods :

"Dawkins, a dealer once, on burthen'd back

Bore his whole substance in a pedlar's pack;
To dames discreet, the duties yet unpaid,
His stores of lace and hyson he convey'd."

They are gone. Will the time never arrive when wise laws shall consign the poacher to the same oblivion ?

Crabbe has described the sorrows of the poor, in verses which may have done something to lead us to mitigate the labourer's lot, by benefits more enduring than what is miscalled Charity. He has described, too, the Poor-house, such as it existed in those days:

"Theirs is yon House that holds the parish poor,

Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day,—
There, children dwell who know no parents' care."

That wretched parish work-house is gone. No walls of mud-no broken door-no naked rafters -no patched panes-no pestilent vapours in badly ventilated rooms. The parentless children are taught far better than many who do know the parents' care. Society is doing its duty to stop the

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