would principally call the attention of our readers. Two lovers (all Mr. C.'s lovers are very prudent) are not rich enough to marry; the youth goes to seek a fortune in the West Indies,

But Judith left them with a heavy heart,
Took a last view, and went to weep apart!
And now his friends went slowly from the place,
Where she stood still, the dashing oar to trace;
Till all were silent!-for the Youth she pray'd,
And softly then return'd the weeping Maid.

They parted, thus by hope and fortune led,
And Judith's hours in pensive pleasure fled :
But when return'd the Youth?-the Youth no more
Return'd exulting to his native shore;

But forty years were pass'd, and then there came
A worn-out man, with wither'd limbs and lame;

His mind oppress'd with woes, and bent with age his frame.
Yes! old and griev'd, and trembling with decay,

Was Allen, landing in his native bay,

Willing his breathless form should blend with kindred clay,
In an autumnal eve he left the beach,

In such an eve he chanc'd the port to reach;

He was alone; he press'd the very place
Of the sad parting, of the last embrace:

There stood his parents, there retir'd the Maid, -
So fond, so tender, and so much afraid d;

And on that spot, through many a year, his mind
Turn'd mournful back, half sinking, half resign'd.
No one was present; of its crew bereft,
A single boat was in the billows left;
Sent from some anchor'd vessel in the bay,
At the returning tide to sail away:

O'er the black stern the moon-light softly play'd,
The loosen'd foresail flapping in the shade :
All silent else on shore; but from the town
A drowsy peal of distant bells came down :
From the tall houses here and there, a light
Serv'd some confus'd remembrance to excite :
"There," he observ'd, and new emotions felt,
"Was my first home-and yonder Judith dwelt :-
Dead! dead are all! I long-I fear to know,"

He said, and walk'd impatient, and yet slow.' Vol. I. p. 93,
His were a medley of bewild'ring themes,

Sad as realities, and wild as dreams.' p. 43.

It comes out that he had married in the west, and been driven from his wife and children. Judith too has married, been unhappy, and is a widow. She gives up her time and attention to the soothing of Allen's old age.

"Tis now her office; her attention see!
While her friend sleeps beneath that shading tree,
Careful, she guards him from the glowing heat,
And pensive muses at her Allen's feet.

And where is he? Ah! doubtless in those scenes
Of his best days, amid the vivid greens,

Fresh with unnumber'd rills, where ev'ry gale
Breathes the rich fragrance of the neighb❜ring vale;
Smiles not his wife, and listens as there comes
The night-bird's music from the thick'ning glooms?
And as he sits with all these treasures nigh,
Blaze not with fairy-light the phosphor fly,
When like a sparkling gem it wheels illumin'd by?
This is the joy that now so plainly speaks
In the warm transient flushing of his cheeks;
For he is list'ning to the fancied noise
Of his own children, eager in their joys :-
All this he feels, a dream's delusive bliss
Gives the expression, and the glow like this.
And now his Judith lays her knitting by,
These strong emotions in her friend to spy;
For she can fully of their nature deem

But see! he breaks the long-protracted theme,

And wakes and cries-" My God! 'twas but a dream!"

The death of Lucy, too, in The Mother,' though obvious in conception and easy of execution, has something in it that pleases.

Mr. Crabbe, again, though his descriptions are mostly affected with that tedious minuteness we have already spoken of, can certainly describe with the hand of a master. Here is a beautiful description of the closing autumn.

Cold grew the foggy morn, the day was brief,
Loose on the cherry hung the crimson leaf;
The dew dwelt ever on the herb; the woods

Roar'd with strong blasts, with mighty showers the floods;
All green was vanish'd, save of pine and yew,
That still display'd their melancholy hue;

Save the green holly with its berries red,

And the green moss that o'er the gravel spread. '

The Patron, Vol. I. p. 101.

The Gypsey group, in The Lover's Journey,' has great

merit.

Again the country was enclos'd, a wide
And sandy road has banks on either side;
Where, lo! a hollow on the left appear'd,
And there a Gipsy-tribe their tent had rear'd;
'Twas open spread, to catch the morning sun,
And they had now their early meal begun,
When two brown boys just left their grassy seat,
The early Trav'ler with their pray'rs to greet:

While yet Orlando held his pence in hand,
He saw their sister on her duty stand;
Some twelve years old, demure, affected, sly,
Prepar'd the force of early powers to try;
Sudden a look of languor he descries,
And well-feign'd apprehension in her eyes;
Train'd but yet savage, in her speaking face,
He mark'd the features of her vagrant race:
When a light laugh and roguish leer express'd
The vice implanted in her youthful breast:
Forth from the tent her elder brother came,
Who seem'd offended, yet forbore to blame
The young designer, but could only trace
The looks of pity in the Trav'ler's face:
Within, the father, who from fences nigh
Had brought the fuel for the fire's supply,
Watch'd now the feeble blaze, and stood dejected by
On ragged rug, just borrow'd from the bed,
And by the hand of coarse indulgence fed,
In dirty patch-work negligently dress'd,
Reclin'd the wife, an infant at her breast;
In her wild face some touch of grace

remain❜d,

Of vigour palsied and of beauty stain'd;
Her blood shot eyes on her unneeding mate

Were wrathful turn'd, and seem'd her wants to state,
Cursing his tardy aid-her Mother there

With Gipsy-state engross'd the only chair;

Solemn and dull her look; with such she stands,
And reads the milk-maid's fortune in her hands,
Tracing the lines of life; assum'd through years,
Each feature now the steady falsehood wears;
With hard and savage eye she views the food,
And grudging pinches their intruding brood;
Last in the group, the worn-out Grandsire sits
Neglected, lost, and living but by fits;

Uscle-s, despis'd, his worthless labours done,
And half protected by the vicious son,
Who half supports him; he with heavy glance,
Views the young ruffians who around him dance;
And, by the sadness in his face, appears
To trace the progress of their future years;
Through what strange course of misery, vice, deceit,
Must wildly wander each unpractis'd cheat;

What shame and grief, what punishment and pain,
Sport of fierce passions, must each child sustain-

Ere they like him approach their latter end,

Without a hope, a comfort, or a friend!' Vol. I. pp. 197-199,

In portrait-painting, Mr. C. is often successful.

⚫ Cou ter meantime selected, doubted, weigh'd, And then brought home a young complying Maid;

A tender creature, full of fears, as charms,
A beauteous nursling from its mother's arms;
A soft, sweet blossom, such as men must love,
But to preserve must keep it in the stove:
She had a mild, subdued, expiring look-
Raise but the voice, and this fair creature shook;
Leave her alone, she felt a thousand fears-
Chide, and she melted into floods of tears;
Fondly she pleaded and would gently sigh,
For very pity, or she knew not why;
One whom to govern none could be afraid→
Hold up the finger, this meek thing obey'd;
Her happy Husband had the easiest task-
Say but his will, no question would she ask;
She sought no reasons, no affairs she knew,
Of business spoke not, and hai nought to do.

The Wager, Vol. II. pp. 159, 160,

• But in this instant Sybil's eye had seen
The tall fair person and the still staid mien ;
The glow that temp'rance o'er the cheek had spread,
Where the soft down half-veil'd the purest red;
And the serene deportment that proclaim'd
A heart unspott'd, and a life unblam'd,
But then with the e she saw attire too plain,

The pale brown coat, though worn without a stain;
The formal air, and something of the pride
That indicates the wealth it seems to hide ;
And looks that were not, she conceived, exempt
From a proud pity, or a sly contempt.'

The Frank Courtship, Vol. I. pp. 130. 131. Mr. C. was on a former occasion, eminently successful in depicturing madness. We think the following does no discredit to its author.

Friends now appear'd, but in the Man was seen

The angry Maniac, with vindictive mien ;
Too late their pity gave to care and skill
The hurried mind and ever-wandering will;
Unnotic'd pass'd all time, and not a ray
Of reason broke on his benighted way;
But now he spurn'd the straw in pure
disdain,
And now laugh'd loudly at the clinking chain.
Then as its wrath subsided, by degrees

The mind sank slowly to infantine ease;
To playful foily, and to causeless joy,
Speech without aim, and without end, employ ;
He drew fantastic figures on the wall,
And gave some wild relation of them all;
With brutal shape he join'd the human face,
And idiot smiles approv'd the motly race.

Harmless at length th' unhappy man was found,
The spirit settled, but the reason drown'd;
And all the dreadful tempest died away

To the dull stillness of the misty day.

And now his freedom he attain'd,-if free
The lost to reason, truth, and hope can be ;
His friends, or wearied with the charge, or sure
The harmless wretch was now beyond a cure,
Gave him to wander where he pleas'd, and find
His own resources for the eager mind;
The playful children of the place he meets,
Playful with them he rambles through the streets;
In all they need, his stronger arm he lends,
And his lost mind to these approving friends.

That gentle Maid, whom once the Youth had lov'd,
Is now with mild religious pity mov'd;
Kindly she chides his boyish flights, while he
Will for a moment fix'd and pensive be;
And as she trembling speaks, his lively eyes'
Explore her looks, he listens to her sighs;

Charm'd by her voice, th' harmonious sounds invade
His clouded mind and for a time persuade;
Like a pleas'd Infant, who has newly caught
From the maternal glance a gleam of thought;
He stands enrapt, the half-known voice to hear,
And starts, half-conscious, at the falling tear.

Rarely from town, nor then unwatch'd, he goes,
In darker mood, as if to hide his woes ;
Returning soon, he with impatience seeks

His youthful friends, and shouts, and sings, and speaks;
Speaks a wild speech with action all as wild—
The children's leader, and himself a child;
He spins their top, or, at their bidding bends
His back, while o'er it leap his laughing friends;
Simple and weak, he acts the boy once more,
And heedless children call him Silly Shore."

Edward Shore, Vol. II. pp. 19–21. These passages certainly possess excellence. On the whole, however, we are very far from thinking that these tales will add to the reputation of the author of the Village and the Borough. Lovers as we are of poetry, it was with no little difficulty that we toiled through this heavy mass of verse. seemed jogging on a broken-winded Pegasus through all the flats and bogs of Parnassus. We do hope that, when Mr. Crabbe has it in contemplation to appear again before the public, he will employ a little more judgement in the selection of his subjects, a little more fancy in their decoration, and withal a little more time in preparing ten thousand verses for the press.