any other books, except Shakespeare, and "during the few intervals in those sad days after his return to Abbotsford, in 1832, when he was sufficiently himself to ask his family to read aloud to him, the only books he ever called for were his Bible and his Crabbe."* Wordsworth, a man both sincere and chary of praise, thus wrote to the poet's son and biographer in 1834: "Any testimony to the merit of your revered father's Works would, I feel, be superfluous, if not impertinent. They will last from their combined merits as poetry and truth, full as long as anything that has been expressed in verse since they first made their appearance"-a period which, be it noted, includes almost all Wordsworth's own work. Crabbe was favourite reading with Cardinal Newman, a keen student of human character and motives. He said that, after fifty years, he read "Richard's Story of his Boyhood" with the same delight as on its first appearance, and that "A work which can please in youth and age seems to fulfil (in logical language) the accidental definition of a classic." Edward Fitzgerald relates that the late Laureate shared in this appreciation. "Almost the last time I met him he was quoting from memory that fine passage in 'Delay has Danger,' where the late autumn landscape seems to borrow from the conscience-stricken lover who gazes on it the gloom which it reflects upon him ;" and, "in the course of * Note to Crabbe's Poems, vol. ii. p. 184; and see "Lockhart's Life of Scott," vol. x. p. 210. + "Idea of a University Edition," 1875, p. 150. See page 288 of this selection. further conversation on the subject, Mr. Tennyson added, 'Crabbe has a world of his own,' by virtue of that original genius, I suppose, which is said to entitle and carry the possessor to what we call Immortality." Poetic work which has pleased Byron, Scott, Wordsworth, Newman, Tennyson and Edward Fitzgerald, hardly needs further recommendation. If one compares the narrative poems of Crabbe with those of Wordsworth, one sees that, although Wordsworth's poetry is far purer, and rises higher and goes deeper both in its contemplation of men and outer Nature, yet in Crabbe there is more breadth, dramatic power, and close observation of detail both in Nature and in human character. And the poet, after stumbling along prosaically enough, often surprises one with a passage of the most striking power. At times not Wordsworth himself could write more finely or strongly, or with more penetrating pathos. Let the reader turn, if he desires an immediate instance, to the ten lines about Rachel, smitten by sorrow into quietude.† It may, I think, be asked whether, till Crabbe began to write, any English narrative poet had arisen who could better portray the strangely woven web of human life, its superficial comedy, and deep underlying tragedy "Themes Sad as realities and wild as dreams." It may certainly be said that as a painter in verse of the figures and characters which moved around * Preface to "Readings in Crabbe," 1882. And see "Life of Lord Tennyson," vol. ii. p. 287. + See page 347. him, Crabbe was the Chaucer of his age, an age now vanished almost as much as Chaucer's own. And all his scenes are set in a truly English landscape, under the changes of English skies. One feels through his verse the sweet touch of spring, the mild summer, and above all the serene decline of earlier autumn, as they are felt in the Eastern counties: "So every changing season of the year, Stamps on the scene it's English character." And through it all is heard the sound of―as Fitzgerald says" that old familiar sea which (with all its sad associations) the poet never liked to leave far behind him." But, as a poet, Crabbe had many defects. He was born and bred too soon ever to divest himself entirely, like Wordsworth, of that eighteenth century pseudo-classic style and diction which rings so untrue in our ears. It crops up continually, like weeds in good soil, even in his latest poems, written long after the world's great return to natural taste. Crabbe, again, is often extremely prosaic and careless. Good order and effective arrangement are not qualities of his art.* His son and biographer observes that, in general, "he neither loved order for its own sake, nor had any very high opinion of that passion in others. Witness his words in the tale of 'Stephen Jones, the Learned Boy' : "The love of order-I the thing receive From reverend men-and I in part believe * I should except from this criticism most of the Tales of the 1812 volume. The poem especially called the "Parting Hour" is not only beautiful, but well arranged and free from redundancies. Shows a clear mind and clean, and whoso needs With all that's low, degrading, mean, and base." "Within the poet's house," he adds, "there was a kind of scientific confusion of books, papers, collections of flowers, minerals, insects," &c. A defect in Crabbe's poetry cognate to absence of good order is its diffuseness. In almost every poem there are long divagations which help not the story forward at all. It is excellent poetry to read aloud, provided that the reader is sufficiently experienced to know where to skip; otherwise he will bore his audience. Thus the poetry of Crabbe is a garden which needs weeding and pruning, with some rearranging. It would certainly be impossible, without rather large abbreviations in many of the poems, to make, within reasonable compass, a good selection covering a wide range of his work. I have been encouraged to venture upon such condensation, by the example of Edward Fitzgerald, that faithful Crabbite in the time of greatest disrelish for Crabbe's poetry. In a letter, of 1877, Fitzgerald says that he did some years before get some one "to ask Murray if he would publish a selection from all Crabbe's poems as has been done of Wordsworth and others. But Murray would not meddle." Fitzgerald in 1879 printed privately a selection from the "Tales of the Hall," gave copies to his friends, and in 1882, published a small number of copies through Mr. Quaritch.* His method is to relate in his own prose part of Crabbe's stories, thus abridging, as he says, "tracts of bad verse," and when he resumes the original, to leave out lines here and there, sometimes two, sometimes ten, sometimes more, when Crabbe's divagations break the flow of narrative. Fitzgerald also sometimes, but rarely, changes the order of the verse, so as to make it more effective. He alters none of the wording, save here and there a very slight change consequent upon some omission or rearrangement. In the present selection I have not adopted Fitzgerald's plan of prose abridgments. But, where I cover the same ground, I have usually followed his condensations and rearrangements of the original verse, though by no means invariably. Where my selection extends to ground not covered by Fitzgerald-who restricted himself to the "Tales of the Hall"—I have acted, but with great caution, on the same lines. It is, perhaps, rather a presumption on my part, but it seemed to me that something of the kind was absolutely necessary if a truly representative selection was to be made. I hope that the present volume will induce some to read the original poems in their completeness, the more so because the selection hardly does justice to Crabbe's lighter or more comic vein. I think, however, that his peculiar genius shows itself chiefly in his more austere or pathetic stories, and, in selecting, * "The Crabbe is the same I sent you some years ago . . . and now I have tacked on to it a little Introduction, and sent forty copies to lie on Quaritch's counter; for I do not suppose they will get further. And no great harm done if they stay where they are." (Letter to Mr. Norton, March 7, 1883.) |