simple pictures it presents. We are tempted to extract a good part of the denouement.

The pensive Colin in his garden stray'd,
But felt not then the beauties it display'd;
There many a pleasant object met his view,
A rising wood of oaks behind it grew;
A stream ran by it, and the village-green
And public road were from the garden seen;
Save where the pine and larch the bound'ry made,
And on the rose beds threw a soft'ning shade.

"The Mother sat beside the garden-door,
Dress'd as in times ere she and hers were poor;
The broad-lac'd cap was known in ancient days,
When Madam's dress compell'd the village praise;
And still she look'd as in the times of old;
Ere his last farm the erring husband sold;
While yet the mansion stood in decent state,
And paupers waited at the well-known gate.

64 6

Alas! my Son!' the Mother cried, and why
That silent grief and oft-repeated sigh?
Fain would I think that Jesse still may come
To share the comforts of our rustic home:
She surely lov'd thee; I have seen the maid,
When thou hast kindly brought the Vicar aid-
When thou hast eas'd his bosom of its pain,
Oh! I have seen her- she will come again.'
"The Matron ceas'd; and Colin stood the while
Silent, but striving for a grateful smile;

He then replied –

'Ah! sure had Jesse stay'd,
And shar'd the comforts of our sylvan shade,' &c.
"Sighing he spake-but hark! he hears th' approach
Of rattling wheels! and lo! the evening-coach;
Once more the movement of the horses' feet
Makes the fond heart with strong emotion beat:
Faint were his hopes, but ever had the sight
Drawn him to gaze beside his gate at night;
And when with rapid wheels it hurried by,
He griev'd his parent with a hopeless sigh;
And could the blessing have been bought - what sum
Had he not offer'd, to have Jesse come?

She came! he saw her bending from the door,

Her face, her smile, and he beheld no more;

Lost in his joy! - The mother lent her aid
T'assist and to detain the willing Maid;

Who thought her late, her present home to make,
Sure of a welcome for the Vicar's sake;

But the good Parent was so pleas'd, so kind,

So pressing Colin, she so much inclin'd,

340

CRABBE'S TALES

THE CONFIDANT.

That night advanc'd; and then so long detain'd
No wishes to depart she felt, or feign'd;

Yet long in doubt she stood, and then perforce remain'd.
"In the mild evening, in the scene around,
The Maid, now free, peculiar beauties found;
Blended with village-tones, the evening gale
Gave the sweet night-bird's warblings to the vale;
The youth embolden'd, yet abash'd, now told

His fondest wish, nor found the Maiden cold," &c.

p. 240, 241.

It

"The Struggles of Conscience," though visibly laboured, and, we should suspect, a favourite with the author, pleases us less than any tale in the volume. is a long account of a low base fellow, who rises by mean and dishonourable arts to a sort of opulence; and without ever committing any flagrant crime, sullies his mind with all sorts of selfish, heartless, and unworthy acts, till he becomes a prey to a kind of languid and loathsome

remorse.

The Squire and the Priest" we do not like much better. A free living and free thinking squire had been galled by the public rebukes of his unrelenting pastor, and breeds up a dependent relation of his own to succeed to his charge. The youth drinks and jokes with his patron to his heart's content, during the progress of his education; - but just as the old censor dies, falls into the society of Saints, becomes a rigid and intolerant Methodist, and converts half the parish, to the infinite rage of his patron, and his own ultimate affliction.

"The Confidant" is more interesting; though not altogether pleasing. A fair one makes a slip at the early age of fifteen, which is concealed from every one but her mother, and a sentimental friend, from whom she could conceal nothing. Her after life is pure and exemplary; and at twenty-five she is married to a worthy man, with whom she lives in perfect innocence and concord for many happy years. At last, the confidant of her childhood, whose lot has been less prosperous, starts up and importunes her for money-not forgetting to hint at the fatal secret of which she is the depository. After agonising and plundering her for years, she at last comes and settles herself in her house, and embitters her whole

existence by her selfish threats and ungenerous extortions. The husband, who had been greatly disturbed at the change in his wife's temper and spirits, at last accidently overhears enough to put him in possession of the fact; and resolving to forgive a fault so long past, and so well repaired, takes occasion to intimate his knowledge of it, and his disdain of the false confidant, in an ingenious apologue-which, however, is plain enough to drive the pestilent visitor from his house, and to restore peace and confidence to the bosom of his grateful wife.

"Resentment " is one of the pieces in which Mr. Crabbe has exercised his extraordinary powers of giving pain though not gratuitously in this instance, nor without inculcating a strong lesson of forgiveness and compassion. A middle-aged merchant marries a lady of good fortune, and persuades her to make it all over to him when he is on the eve of bankruptcy. He is reduced to utter beggary; and his wife bitterly and deeply resenting the wrong he had done her, renounces all connection with him, and endures her own reverses with magnanimity. At last a distant relation leaves her his fortune; and she returns to the enjoyment of moderate wealth, and the exercise of charity to all but her miserable husband. Broken by age and disease, he now begs the waste sand from the stone-gutters, and sells it on an ass through the

streets:

"And from each trifling gift

Made shift to live - and wretched was the shift."

The unrelenting wife descries him creeping through the wet at this miserable employment; but still withholds all relief; in spite of the touching entreaties of her compassionate handmaid, whose nature is as kind and yielding as that of her mistress is hard and inflexible. Of all the pictures of medicant poverty that have ever been brought forward in prose or verse-in charity sermons or seditious harangues- we know of none half so moving or complete- so powerful and so true

tained in the following passages: —

as is con

342 CRABBE'S TALES

TOUCHING PICTURE OF POVERTY.

"A dreadful winter came; each day severe,
Misty when mild, and icy-cold when clear;
And still the humble dealer took his load,
Returning slow, and shivering on the road:
The Lady, still relentless, saw him come,
And said, I wonder, has the Wretch a home!'
A hut! a hovel!'-'Then his fate appears
To suit his crime.'-'Yes, Lady, not his years;
No! nor his sufferings nor that form decay'd.'
'The snow,' quoth Susan, falls upon his bed

It blows beside the thatch—it melts upon his head.’·
"Tis weakness, child, for grieving guilt to feel.'
'Yes, but he never sees a wholesome meal;
Through his bare dress appears his shrivel'd skin,
And ill he fares without, and worse within:
With that weak body, lame, diseas'd, and slow,
What cold, pain, peril, must the suffrer know!
Oh! how those flakes of snow their entrance win
Through the poor rags, and keep the frost within!
His very heart seems frozen as he goes,
Leading that starv'd companion of his woes:
He tried to pray his lips, I saw them move,
And he so turned his piteous looks above;
But the fierce wind the willing heart oppos'd,
And, ere he spoke, the lips in misery clos'd!
When reached his home, to what a cheerless fire
And chilling bed will those cold limbs retire!
Yet ragged, wretched as it is, that bed
Takes half the space of his contracted shed;
I saw the thorns beside the narrow grate,
With straw collected in a putrid state:

There will he, kneeling, strive the fire to raise,
And that will warm him, rather than the blaze;
The sullen, smoky blaze, that cannot last

One moment after his attempt is past:

And I so warmly and so purely laid,
To sink to rest!

indeed, I am afraid!'

- p. 320-322. The Lady at last is moved, by this pleading pity, to send him a little relief; but has no sooner dismissed her delighted messenger, than she repents of her weakness, and begins to harden her heart again by the recollection of his misconduct.

"Thus fix'd, she heard not her Attendant glide
With soft low step- till, standing by her side,
The trembling Servant gasp'd for breath, and shed
Relieving tears, then uttered He is dead!'

"Dead!' said the startled Lady. Yes, he fell
Close at the door where he was wont to dwell.

THE BROTHERS.

343

There his sole friend, the Ass, was standing by, Half dead himself, to see his Master die.' -p. 324, 325. "The Convert" is rather dull- though it teaches a lesson that may be useful in these fanatic times. John Dighton was bred a blackguard; and we have here a most lively and complete description of the items that go to the composition of that miscellaneous character; but being sore reduced by a long fever, falls into the hands of the Methodists, and becomes an exemplary convert. He is then set up by the congregation in a small stationer's shop; and, as he begins to thrive in business, adds worldly literature to the evangelical tracts which composed his original stock-in-trade. This scandalises the brethren; and John, having no principles or knowledge, falls out with the sect, and can never settle in the creed of any other; and so lives perplexed and discontented and dies in agitation and terror.

"The Brothers" restores us again to human sympathies. The characters, though humble, are admirably drawn, and the baser of them, we fear, the most strikingly natural. An open-hearted generous sailor had a poor, sneaking, cunning, selfish brother, to whom he remitted all his prize-money, and gave all the arrears of his pay-receiving, in return, vehement professions of gratitude, and false protestations of regard. At last, the sailor is disabled in action, and discharged; just as his heartless brother has secured a small office by sycophancy, and made a prudent mariage with a congenial temper. He seeks the shelter of his brother's house as freely as he would have given it; and does not at first perceive the coldness of his reception. -But mortifications grow upon him day by day. His grog is expensive, and his pipe makes the wife sick; then is voice is so loud, and his manners so rough, that her friends cannot visit her if he appears at table! So he is banished by degrees to a garret; where he falls sick, and has no consolation but in the kindness of one of his nephews, a little boy, who administers to his comforts, and listens to his stories with a delighted attention. This, too, however, is at last interdicted by his hard-hearted parents;