suits Mr. Crabbe. But the love song which has been adduced as an instance of his success in a style hitherto unattempted by him, we regard as affording a decided proof of his inadequacy to the attempt it has little point, little propriety or elegance, aud no feeling, and the Damon' is almost burlesque. No sooner, however, does Mr. Crabbe arrive at that period in the story which affords scope for pathos, than he is all himself again. The idea in the last three lines of the following extract, is extremely beautiful.

There came, at length, request

That I would see a wretch by grief opprest,
By guilt affrighted-and I went to trace
Once more the vice-worn features of that face,
That sin-wreck'd being! and I saw her laid
Where never worldly joy a visit paid:

That world receding fast! the world to come
Conceal'd in terror, ignorance, and gloom;
Sin, sorrow, and neglect: with not a spark
Of vital hope,-all horrible and dark-
It frighten'd me!-I thought, And shall not I
Thus feel? thus fear?-this danger can I fly?
Do I so wisely live that I can calmly die?'
'Twas in that chamber, Richard, I began
To think more deeply of the end of man.'

*

• Still as I went came other change the frame
And features wasted, and yet slowly came
The end; and so inaudible the breath,

And still the breathing, we exclaim'd-'tis death!
But death it was not; when indeed she died,
I sat and his last gentle stroke espied :
When as it came-or did my fancy trace
That lively, lovely flushing o'er the face?
Bringing back all that my young heart impress'd!
It came and went! she sigh'd and was at rest.'
Vol. I. pp. 164—6.

The Sisters' is an interesting and not uninstructive story : the characters are very natural and well discriminated, and the incidents are of a kind with which real life has of late but too much abounded. Like most of the Tales, it leaves a melancholy impression upon the mind, such as the Writer seems to delight in producing. Melancholy is the very element of his fancy, and in this instance it has seemed to supply an inspiration which has called forth the unusual effort of some lyrical stanzas. They are in the moodiest strain, and breathe all that is morbid in feeling; but some of the verses have a redeeming beauty, and the last in particular is very striking. As Mr. Crabbe so rarely indulges in this style of composition, we must do him the justice of extracting some of the stanzas.

Let me not have this gloomy view,
About my room, around my bed;
But morning roses, wet with dew,

To cool my burning brows instead.
As flow'rs that once in Eden grew,
Let them their fragrant spirits shed,
And every day the sweets renew,
Till I, a fading flower, am dead.
Oh! let the herbs I loved to rear,
Give to my sense their perfumed breath;
Let them be placed about my bier,
And grace the gloomy house of death.
I'll have my grave beneath a hill,
Where, only Lucy's self shall know;
Where runs the pure pellucid rill
Upon its gravelly bed below.

• There violets on the borders blow,
And insects their soft light display,
Till, as the morning sunbeams glow,
The cold phosporic fires decay.
In virgin earth, till then unturn'd,
There let my maiden form be laid,
Nor let my changed clay be spurn'd,

Nor for new guest that bed be made.
I will not have the churchyard ground,
With bones all black and ugly grown,
To press my shivering body round,
Or on my wasted limbs be thrown.
I will not have the bell proclaim
When those sad marriage rites begin,
And boys, without regard or shame,
Press the vile mouldering masses in.
Say not, it is beneath my care;
I cannot these cold truths allow;
These thoughts may not afflict me there,
But, O! they vex and tease me now.
Raise not a turf, nor set a stone,
That man a maiden's grave may trace,
But thou, my Lucy, come alone,
And let affection find the place.
'O! take me from a world I hate,
Men cruel, selfish, sensual, cold;
And in some pure and blessed state,
Let me my sister minds behold:
From gross and sordid views refined,
Our heaven of spotless love to share,
For only generous souls design'd,
And not a man to meet us there.'

Vol. I. pp. 212-15.

In our opinion, the poem would not have lost any of its beauty if it had appeared in the form in which we have given it, with the omission of the intermediate twelve lines.

Book IX. The Preceptor Husband,' narrates the disappointment of a man who determined to choose a learned wife, but was seduced by a pretty face, to marry one without either learning or mind.

'The Old Bachelor' is the subject of Book X. and the opprobrious name is well vindicated in the person of the hero. In this Tale, the Author seizes an opportunity of describing, with his own inimitable force and vividness, the morbid operations of the perturbed intellect. The sudden death of the lady to whom the narrator was engaged, is followed by an interval in his history, a blank which he confesses himself to be unable to fill.

'It is a puzzle and a terror still.

I was desirous from myself to run,

And something, but I knew not what, to shun.

Yet did I feel some intervals of bliss

Ev'n with the horrors of a fate like this;

And dreams of wonderful construction paid

For waking horror.'

The autumn tints of forty-six upon human character, have never perhaps been more accurately and naturally traced, than in this Old Bachelor's narrative; and the lover of sixty is a good portrait.

"The Maid's Story,' which concludes the first volume, is replete with that interest which arises from the minute delineation of buman character and the manners of the world. It is for the most part a satire, abounding with the marks of shrewd observation, and not destitute of a kind of cynical humour. We have by anticipation animadverted on the chief deformity in the tale in a moral point of view, the character of Frederick. That of Grandmamma, and the humble one of Biddy, claim a more honourable distinction.

Poor grandmamma among the gentry dwelt
Of a small town, and all the honour felt;
Shrinking from all approaches to disgrace
That might be marked in so genteel a place;
Where every daily deed, as soon as done,
Ran through the town as fast as it could run
At dinners what appear'd-at cards who lost or won.
Our good appearance through the town was known,
Hunger and thirst were matters of our own;
And you would judge that she in scandal dealt,
Who told on what we fed, or how we felt.

We had a little maid, some four feet high,
Who was employed our household stores to buy ;

For she would weary every man in trade,
And tease t'assent whom she could not persuade.
• Methinks I see her, with her pigmy light,
Precede her mistress in a moonless night;
From the small lantern throwing through the street
The dimm'd effulgence at her lady's feet;
What time she went to prove her well-known skill
With rival friends at their beloved quadrille.

"And how's your pain?" inquired the gentle maid,
For that was asking if with luck she play'd;
And this she answer'd as the cards decreed,
"O Biddy, ask not-very bad indeed ;"
Or, in more cheerful tone, from spirit light,
"Why, thank you, Biddy, pretty well to-night."'

Vol. I. pp. 287-9.

The old lady dies, and her forniture serves but to pay the bills, the burial, and the rent.' Our heroine, in her exigency, ecepts of a temporary asylum in the humble cottage of the ithful Biddy.

In times like this the poor have little dread,

They can but work, and they shall then be fed;
And Biddy cheer'd me with such thoughts as this,
"You'll find the poor have their enjoyments, Miss !"
Indeed I saw, for Biddy took me home

To a forsaken hovel's cold and gloom;

And while my tears in plenteous flow were shed,
With her own hands she placed her proper bed,
Reserved for need. A fire was quickly made,
And food, the purchase for the day, display'd:
She let in air to make the damps retire,
Then placed her sad companion at her fire;
She then began her wonted peace to feel,
She bought her wool, and sought her favourite wheel,
That as she turn'd, she sang with sober glee,
"Begone, dull Care! I'll have no more with thee;"
Then turn'd to me, and bade me weep no more,
But try and taste the pleasures of the poor."
'At night we pray'd-I dare not say a word
Of our devotion, it was so absurd;

And very pious upon Biddy's part.
But mine were all effusions of the heart;
While she her angels call'd their peace to shed,
And bless the corners of our little bed.'

Vol. I. pp. 294-6.

The adventure with a youthful admirer, in the sequel, may possibly have its moral use. We recommend to those whom it may concern, the prudent counsel and the firm decision of this princess of old maids. Rupert, the sentimental boy, is most

delightfully portrayed: it has the humour of caricature, yet it is strictly within the line of the natural.

1

We shall have less temptation to multiply our extracts in proceeding to give an account of the second Volume. With the exception of the first story, the tales are all of inferior interest, the subjects being, for the most part, instances of uninstructive distress, or of uninteresting and disgusting folly and meanness. For example, Delay has Danger,' is the title of a narrative which shews how a silly young fellow was half-entrapped, half induced by pique, to break his engagement to a woman he loved, by marrying one, in far inferior circumstances, whom he despised, and how he thereby bad to endure for the rest of his days, a burden of self-contempt, in addition to the contempt of all his friends, in which the reader sincerely participates. The Natural Death of Love,' is a conversation rather than a tale, which contains some wholesome but rather common-place doctrine and advice on the subject of conjugal happiness. 'Gretna Green' is a revolting picture of an extreme case of duplicity and folly, terminating in a more than usual measure of domestic unhappiness. 'Lady Barbara, or the Ghost,' is a warning against indiscreet second marriages. where the disparity of years adds impropriety to the venture. It is rather obscurely and feebly written, and has little merit of any kind to compensate for the unpleasing nature of the story. Mr. Crabbe tells us, that he was indebted to a friend for the outline of the tale, which may partly account for the inferiority of its execution, as he had to work upon the ideas of another, instead of following the bent of his own fancy. He acknowledges a similar obligation with respect to the story of Ellen in Book XVIII. The obligation does not, in this instance, any more than in the former, appear to be very considerable. The story, even if it be true, we should still pronounce improbable; and the inexplicable perverseness of the lady is irreconcileable either with the common forms of social courtesy, or the natural operations of feeling. We cannot concede our pity to folly so wilful, and to suffering so entirely self-inflicted. Cecil's is a more natural character, and a more likely fate.

The thrice-married Widow is another of those unpleasing Tales which this Writer is fond of telling; not deficient in shrewd remark, and lively description, and knowledge of the world, but wholly destitute of those qualities which are adapted either to captivate the fancy or to interest the feelings. The prominent character is vulgar, heartless, and insipid; the incidents are the common business of common life; and the tone of the Narrator is as frigid, and cynical, and dry, as divinity grafted upon physic may be expected to make a man. If this, and the