GEORGE CRABBE: THE CRITICAL HERITAGE THE CRITICAL HERITAGE SERIES General Editor: B.C.Southam The Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticism on major figures in literature Each volume presents the contemporary responses to a particular writer, enabling the student to follow the formation of critical attitudes to the writer’s work and its place within a literary tradition The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of criticism to fragments of contemporary opinion and little published documentary material, such as letters and diaries Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included in order to demonstrate fluctuations in reputation following the writer’s death GEORGE CRABBE THE CRITICAL HERITAGE Edited by ARTHUR POLLARD London and New York First Published in 1972 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003 Compilation, introduction, notes and index © 1972 Arthur Pollard All rights reserved No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data ISBN 0-203-19631-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-19634-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-13438-2 (Print Edition) To the memory of URSULA beloved companion and helpmeet from the first days of our marriage to the last of her life The Parish Register III, 581–6 General Editor’s Preface The reception given to a writer by his contemporaries and near contemporaries is evidence of considerable value to the student of literature On one side we learn a great deal about the state of criticism at large and in paiticular about the development of critical attitudes towards a single writer; at the same time, through private comments in letters, journals or marginalia, we gain an insight upon the tastes and literary thought of individual readers of the period Evidence of this kind helps us to understand the writer’s historical situation, the nature of his immediate reading-public, and his response to these pressures The separate volumes in the Critical Heritage Series present a record of this early criticism Clearly, for many of the highly productive and lengthily reviewed nineteenth-and twentieth-century writers, there exists an enormous body of material; and in these cases the volume editors have made a selection of the most important views, significant for their intrinsic critical worth or for their representative quality—perhaps even registering incomprehension! For earlier writers, notably pre-eighteenth century, the materials are much scarcer and the historical period has been extended, sometimes far beyond the writer’s lifetime, in order to show the inception and growth of critical views which were initially slow to appear In each volume the documents are headed by an Introduction, discussing the material assembled and relating the early stages of the author’s reception to what we have come to identify as the critical tradition The volumes will make available much material which would otherwise be difficult of access and it is hoped that the modern reader will be thereby helped towards an informed understanding of the ways in which literature has been read and judged B.C.S vii Contents page xiii 31 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION NOTE ON THE TEXT EDMUND CARTWRIGHT, The Candidate (1780) notice in Monthly Review, September 1780 Notice in Critical Review, September 1780 Notice in Gentleman’s Magazine,October 1780 The Library (1781) Notice in Critical Review, August 1781 Notice in Gentleman’s Magazine,October 1781 EDMUND CARTWRIGHT, notice in Monthly Review, December 1781 The Village (1783) DR JOHNSON, letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds, March 1783 Notice in Critical Review, July 1783 EDMUND CARTWRIGHT, notice in Monthly Review, November 1783 10 Notice in Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1783 The Newspaper (1785) 11 Notice in Critical Review, April 1785 12 CHARLES BURNEY, notice in Monthly Review, November 1785 Poems (1807) 13 Reviews in Gentleman’s Magazine, November 1807, January 1808 14 Review in Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, December 1807 15 Review in Oxford Review, January 1808 16 FRANCIS JEFFREY, review in Edinburgh Review, April 1808 17 THOMAS DENMAN, review in Monthly Review, June 1808 18 Review in British Critic, June 1808 ix 33 34 36 37 38 39 41 41 42 44 45 46 49 50 53 54 61 63 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE never can fade, because the subjects are perennial and are truly caught Even his plays on words, which horrified Jeffrey— Alas! your reverence, wanton thoughts I grant Were once my motive, now the thoughts of want, [The Parish Register, I, 453–4] and the like—are not worse than Milton’s jokes on the guns He has immense talent, and he has the originality which sets talent to work in a way not tried by others, and may thus be very fairly said to turn it into genius He is all this and more But despite the warnings of a certain precedent I cannot help stating the case which we have discussed in the old form, and asking, was Crabbe a poet? And thus putting the question, we may try to sum up It is the gracious habit of a summing-up to introduce, if possible, a dictum of the famous men our fathers that were before us I have already referred to Hazlitt’s criticism on Crabbe in The Spirit of the Age, and I need not here urge at very great length the cautions which are always necessary in considering any judgment of Hazlitt’s Much that he says even in the brief space of six or eight pages which he allots to Crabbe is unjust; much is explicably, and not too creditably, unjust Crabbe was a successful man, and Hazlitt did not like successful men: he was a clergyman of the Church of England, and Hazlitt did not love clergymen of the Church of England: he had been a duke’s chaplain, and Hazlitt loathed dukes: he had been a Radical, and was still (though Hazlitt does not seem to have thought him so) a Liberal, but his Liberalism had been Torified into a tame variety Again, Crabbe, though by no means squeamish, is the most unvoluptuous and dispassionate of all describers of inconvenient things; and Hazlitt was the author of Liber Amoris Accordingly there is much that is untrue in the tissue of denunciation which the critic devotes to the poet But there are two passages in this tirade which alone might show how great a critic Hazlitt himself was Here in a couple of lines (‘they turn, one and all, on the same sort of teasing, helpless, unimaginative distress’) is the germ of one of the most famous and certainly of the best passages of the late Mr Arnold; and here again is one of those critical taps of the finger which shivers by a touch of the weakest part a whole Rupert’s drop of misapprehension Crabbe justified himself by Pope’s example ‘Nothing,’ says Hazlitt, ‘can be more dissimilar Pope describes what is striking: Crabbe would have described merely what was there… In Pope there was an appeal to the imagination, you see what was passing in a poetical point of view.’ 481 CRABBE Even here (and I have not been able to quote the whole passage) there is one of the flaws, which Hazlitt rarely avoided, in the use of the word ‘striking’; for, Heaven knows, Crabbe is often striking enough But the description of Pope as showing things ‘in a poetical point of view’ hits the white at once, wounds Crabbe mortally, and demolishes realism, as we have been pleased to understand it for the last generation or two Hazlitt, it is true, has not followed up the attack, as I shall hope to show in an instant; but he has indicated the right line of it As far as mere treatment goes, the fault of Crabbe is that he is pictorial rather than poetic, and photographic rather than pictorial He sees his subject steadily, and even in a way he sees it whole; but he does not see it in the poetical way You are bound in the shallows and the miseries of the individual; never you reach the large freedom of the poet who looks at the universal The absence of selection, of the discarding of details that are not wanted, has no doubt a great deal to with this—Hazlitt seems to have thought that it had everything to I not quite agree with him there Dante, I think, was sometimes quite as minute as Crabbe; and I not know that any one less hardy than Hazlitt himself would single out, as Hazlitt expressly does, the death-bed scene of Buckingham as a conquering instance in Pope to compare with Crabbe.1 We know that the bard of Twickenham grossly exaggerated this But suppose he had not? Would it have been worse verse? I think not Although the faculty of selecting instead of giving all, as Hazlitt himself justly contends, is one of the things which make poesis non utpictura, it is not all, and I think myself that a poet, if he is a poet, could be almost absolutely literal Shakespeare is so in the picture of Gloucester’s corpse Is that not poetry? The defect of Crabbe, as it seems to me, is best indicated by reference to one of the truest of all dicta on poetry, the famous maxim of Joubert— that the lyre is a winged instrument and must transport There is no wing in Crabbe, there is no transport, because as I hold (and this is where I go beyond Hazlitt), there is no music In all poetry, the very highest as well as the very lowest that is still poetry, there is something which transports, and that something in my view is always the music of the verse, of the words, of the cadence, of the rhythm, of the sounds superadded to the meaning When you get the best music married to the best meaning, then you get, say, Shakespeare: when you get some music married to even moderate meaning, you get, say, Moore Wordsworth can, as everybody but Wordsworthians holds, and as some even of Crabbe himself referred to these lines in the Preface to the Tales (1812) 482 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE Wordsworthians admit, write the most detestable doggerel and platitude But when any one who knows what poetry is reads— Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal silence, [‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality’, 155–6] he sees that, quite independently of the meaning, which disturbs the soul of no less a person than Mr John Morley, there is one note added to the articulate music of the world—a note that never will leave off resounding till the eternal silence itself gulfs it He leaves Wordsworth, he goes straight into the middle of the eighteenth century, and he sees Thomson with his hands in his dressing-gown pockets biting at the peaches, and hears him between the mouthfuls murmuring— So when the shepherd of the Hebrid Isles, Placed far amid the melancholy main, [Thomson, The Castle of Indolence, I, st 30] and there is another note, as different as possible in kind yet still alike, struck for ever Yet again, to take example still from the less romantic poets, and in this case from a poet, whom Mr Kebbel1 specially and disadvantageously contrasts with Crabbe, when we read the old schoolboy’s favourite— When the British warrior queen, Bleeding from the Roman rods, [Cowper, ‘Boadicea’] we hear the same quality of music informing words, though again in a kind somewhat lower, commoner, and less In this matter, as in all matters that are worth handling at all, we come of course ad mysterium Why certain combinations of letters, sounds, cadences, should almost without the aid of meaning, though no doubt immensely assisted by meaning, produce this effect of poetry on men no man can say But they do; and the chief merit of criticism is that it enables us by much study of different times and different languages to recognize some part of the laws, though not the ultimate and complete causes, of the production Now I can only say that Crabbe does not produce, or only in the rarest instances produces, this effect on me, and what is more, that on ceasing to be a patient in search of poetical stimulant and becoming merely a gelid critic, I not discover even in Crabbe’s warmest admirers See No 76 above 483 CRABBE any evidence that he produced this effect on them… I observe that the eulogists either discreetly avoid saying what they mean by poetry, or specify for praise something in Crabbe that is not distinctly poetical Cardinal Newman said that Crabbe ‘pleased and touched him at thirty years’ interval,’ and pleaded that this answers to the ‘accidental definition of a classic.’ Most certainly; but not necessarily to that of a poetical classic Jeffrey thought him ‘original and powerful.’ Granted; but there are plenty of original and powerful writers who are not poets Wilson gave him the superlative for ‘original and vivid painting.’ Perhaps; but is Hogarth a poet? Jane Austen ‘thought she could have married him.’ She had not read his biography; but even if she had would that prove him to be a poet? Lord Tennyson is said to single out the following passage, which is certainly one of Crabbe’s best, if not his very best:— Early he rose, and look’d with many a sigh… [Tales of the Hall, XIII, 701–24] It is good: it is extraordinarily good: it could not be better of its kind It is as nearly poetry as anything that Crabbe ever did—but is it quite? If it is (and I am not careful to deny it) the reason, as it seems to me, is that the verbal and rhythmical music here, with its special effect of ‘transporting’, of ‘making the common as if it were uncommon,’ is infinitely better than is usual with Crabbe, that in fact there is music as well as meaning Hardly anywhere else, not even in the best passages of the story of Peter Grimes, shall we find such music; and in its absence it may be said of Crabbe much more truly than of Dryden (who carries the true if not the finest poetical undertone with him even into the rant of Almanzor and Maximin, into the interminable arguments of Religio Laid and The Hind and the Panther) that he is a classic of our prose Yet the qualities which are so noteworthy in him are all qualities which are valuable to the poet, and which for the most part are present in good poets And I cannot help thinking that this was what actually deceived some of his contemporaries and made others content for the most part to acquiesce in an exaggerated estimate of his poetical merits It must be remembered that even the latest generation which, as a whole and unhesitatingly, admired Crabbe, had been brought up on the poets of the eighteenth century, in the very best of whom the qualities which Crabbe lacks had been but sparingly and not eminently present It must be remembered too, that from the great vice of the poetry of the eighteenth century, its artificiality and convention, Crabbe is conspicuously free The return to nature was not the only secret of the 484 THE CRITICAL HERITAGE return to poetry; but it was part of it, and that Crabbe returned to nature no one could doubt Moreover he came just between the school of prose fiction which practically ended with Evelina and the school of prose fiction which opened its different branches with Waverley and Sense and Sensibility His contemporaries found nowhere else the narrative power, the faculty of character-drawing, the genius for description of places and manners, which they found in Crabbe; and they knew that in almost all, if not in all the great poets there is narrative power, faculty of character-drawing, genius for description Yet again, Crabbe put these gifts into verse which at its best was excellent in its own way, and at its worst was a blessed contrast to Darwin or to Hayley Some readers may have had an uncomfortable though only half-conscious feeling that if they had not a poet in Crabbe they had not a poet at all At all events they made up their minds that they had a poet in him But are we bound to follow their example? I think not You could play on Crabbe that odd trick which used, it is said, to be actually played on some mediaeval verse chroniclers and unrhyme him—that is to say, put him into prose with the least possible changes—and his merits would, save in rare instances, remain very much as they are now You could put other words in the place of his words, keeping the verse, and it would not as a rule be much the worse You cannot either of these things with poets who are poets Therefore I shall conclude that save at the rarest moments, moments of some sudden gust of emotion, some happy accident, some special grace of the Muses to reward long and blameless toil in their service, Crabbe was not a poet But I have not the least intention of denying that he was great, and all but of the greatest among English writers 485 Select Bibliography BROMAN, W.E., ‘Factors in Crabbe’s eminence in the early nineteenth century’, Modem Philology, li, August 1953, 42–9: summarizes contemporary criticism, but with purpose of identifying Romantic strains in his work HAYDON, J.O., The Romantic Reviewers, 1802–24, 1969: Part I surveys the reviews of the period; Part II has a section on the treatment of Crabbe HODGART, P and RED PATH, T., Romantic perspectives: the work of Crabbe, Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge as seen by their contemporaries and by themselves, 1964 HUCHON, R., George Crabbe and His Times 1754–1832, 1907: standard biography in substantial detail Better on information than interpretation Contains sections dealing with the contemporary reception of Crabbe’s poetry 486 Index I NAMES (Bold type indicates comment by the person mentioned.) Abel, Carl, 24 Addison, Joseph, 434 Ainger, Alfred, 25 Allan, David, 317, 352 Arch, Joseph, 441 Ariosto, 153, 317 Arnold, Matthew, 366, 431, 481 Austen, Jane, 295, 347, 364, 416, 418, 445, 458, 463, 474, 484–5 Balzac, Honoré de, 445 Baring, Maurice, 24 Baudry, 23–4 Beaumont, Sir George, 291, 455 Birrell, Augustine, 16 Blair, Robert, 69, 72–3 Bloomfield, Robert, 217 Blunden, Edmund, 26 Boccaccio, 149–50, 156, 259 Boileau, Nicolas, 25 Bowles, W.L., 387, 431 Brettell, John, Broman, W.E., 486 Brontë, Charlotte, 452 Brooke, Stopford, 449 Brougham, Henry, Lord, 54 Browning, Elizabeth B., 397 Browning, Robert, 3, 431, 456 Brownrigg, Elizabeth, 110 &n, 114 Bryant, W.C., 369 Brydges, SirEgerton, 335n Bulwer, Lytton, 397 Bunyan, John, 215 Burke, Edmund, 63, 273, 321, 335, 350, 395, 403, 424, 434, 443, 451, 465, 476 Burn, Richard, 214 Burney, Charles, 46 ff Burney, Fanny, 485 Burns, Robert, 16, 20, 25, 166, 218– 21, 298, 308, 311–12, 377, 392, 396, 399, 425, 438, 449, 453 Butler, Joseph, 470 Butler, Samuel, 256, 278, 398 Byron, Lord, 16, 20, 24, 216, 248–9, 270–1, 294–5, 315, 317–19, 322, 335, 348, 371–2, 377, 383, 386–7, 396, 399, 404, 421, 435, 449–50, 456, 458, 462, 467, 474, 476 Campbell, Thomas, 20, 25, 97, 144, 197–8, 294, 387–8, 421, 424, 467 Canning, George, 315, 396 Carlyle, Thomas, 20, 296, 371 Cartwright, Edmund, 5, 33, 39, 42 Cervantes, M.de, 156, 317, 364 Chamberlain, R.L., 27 Chasles, Philarète, 25 Chatterton, Thomas, 195 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 13, 112, 149–50, 152, 156–9, 297, 430 Child, F.J., 361 Churchill, Charles, 54, 256, 296, 431 Cicero, 192 Clare, John, 297–8 Claude Lorrain, 240 Clough, A.H., 21, 361 Coleridge, Hartley, 22, 400 Coleridge, S.T., 20, 22, 56, 298, 352, 377, 386–7, 466, 476 Cotman, J.S., 480 Cowley, Abraham, 126 Cowper, William, 2, 25, 55, 67, 88, 155, 178, 210, 248–9, 296–7, 302, 487 INDEX 337, 340, 348, 382, 386, 424, 430, 438, 449, 467–8, 476, 483 Crabbe, George (the son), 4, 15 The Life, 4, 7, 18, 37, 40, 48–9, 78– 9, 147, 218, 361 Crebillon, Prosper, 12, 175 Croker,J.W., 20, 297, 346 Crome, J.B., 480 Cruttwell, Patrick, 26 Cunningham, Allan, 24 Cuyp, Albert, 334 Dana, R.H., 19, 215 ff Darwin, Erasmus, 97, 296, 424, 426, 485 Davison, Thomas, Deighton, 240 Denman, Thomas, 6, 61–2, 80 ff, 172 ff De Quincey, Thomas, 406 Devey, Joseph, 431 ff Dickens, Charles, 376, 397, 411, 425 Dixon, R.W., 368 Dodsley, James, Dow, Gerald, 297 Droste, Annette, 24 Druzhinin, A., 24 Dryden, John, 1, 27, 54, 80, 130, 152, 156, 182, 185, 197, 256, 297, 319, 340, 361, 398–9, 430, 466, 475, 484 Duncan, J.S., 314–15 Edgeworth, Maria, 165, 198, 207, 211, 353 Eliot, George, 21, 23, 362, 452, 469, 474 Eliot, T.S., 1–2 Elliott, Ebenezer, 386 Emerson, R.W., 379 Empson, William, 7, 18, 345 ff Étienne, C.G., 25 Fenwick, Isabella, 292 Fielding, Henry, 445, 452 FitzGerald, Edward, 3, 17, 21, 311– 18, 457 ff Flaubert, Gustave, 478 Forster,E.M., 2, 26 Foster, John, 380 Fox, C.J., 6, 63, 76, 315, 321, 396, 403, 435, 451, 454–5 Galignani, 23 Gait, John, 384 Gay, John, 156, 214, 329, 332, 438 Gifford, William, 8, 117, 347, 356, 370, 396, 406, 434, 451, 476, 479 Giles, Henry, 389 ff Gilfillan, George, 3, 20–1, 23, 376 ff Goethe, W.Von, 317, 447 Goldsmith, Oliver, 2, 5, 41, 52, 54–5, 64, 74, 97, 111, 131, 178, 197–8, 210, 293, 298, 301, 329, 337, 338n, 340, 348, 370, 386, 425, 437, 441, 448–9, 456, 461, 475–6, 480 Gower, John, 156 Graham, James, 132 Grant, Robert, 8, 10, 12, 117 ff Gray, Thomas, 109, 257, 356, 437 Griffiths, George, Grüner, Ludwig, 411 Haddakin, Lilian, 26–7 Hatchard, John, 4, 49 Haydon, J.O., 486 Hayley, William, 424, 485 Hayter, Alethea, 26 Hazlitt, William, 2–3, 19–20, 22, 25, 213–14, 215, 217, 223, 299 ff, 384, 477, 481–2 Heath-Stubbs, John, 26 Herrick, Robert, 431 Hobbema, M., 301 Hobbes, Thomas, 241 Hodgart,P., 486 Home, John, 432 Homer, 80, 180, 198, 210–11, 256, 317, 353, 357, 366 Hopkins, G.M., 21, 368 Horace, 47, 258, 277, 294, 317, 335, 340, 384 Homer, Francis, 54, 295 Howship, Dr, 422 Huchon, R., 26, 41, 486 Hunt, Leigh, 217, 296, 387 Jacobsen, F.J., 24 488 INDEX Jeffrey, Francis, 6, 8, 10–12, 14–17, 20, 49, 54 ff, 84 ff, 163 ff, 227 ff, 295, 370, 396, 422, 427, 434, 439, 451, 457, 465, 474, 476, 479, 481, 484 Johnson, Samuel, 1, 2, 5–6, 41, 63, 112, 142n, 152, 230, 256, 273, 301, 321, 334–5, 350, 370, 396, 434, 473, 475–7 Jonson, Ben, 411 Kaiser, A., 34 Keats, john, 335, 387, 399–400 Kebbel, T.E., 22, 467 ff, 483 Klopstock, F.G., 317 Knox, Vicesimus (Elegant Extracts), 317, 424 Kotzebue, A., 226 Kyukhel’beker,W.K., 24 La Bruyère, Jean de, 249, 429 Lackington, James, 201 & n La Fontaine, Jean de, 156 Lamb, Charles, 375, 383 Landor, W.S., 1, 20, 298–9, 476 Landseer, Sir Edwin, 352 Lang,V., 26 Langhorne, John, 12 Leadbeater, Mrs Mary, 13, 427, 457, 470 Leavis, F.R., 1, 3, 26–7 Lehmann, G., 25 Leslie, C.R., 352 Lillo, George, 242, 337n, 382 Lockhart, J.G., 18, 315 ff, 372, 468, 476 Longinus, 133, 356 Lowell, J.R., 17, 364 Lucas, F.L., Macaulay, T.B., 448, 450 Mackintosh, Sir James, 295 Mandeville, B.de, 241 Marvell, Andrew, 56 Massey, Gerald, 397 Massinger, Philip, 109, 391 Milton, John, 155, 210, 256–7, 265, 357, 481 Molière, 141, 362, 366 Montgomery, James, 7, 74 ff, 99 ff, 387 Montgomery, Robert, 388 Moore, Thomas, 20, 236, 259, 274, 294, 317, 345–6, 363, 377, 387, 403, 421, 456, 482 Morley, John, 483 Murray, John, 4, 15–16, 218, 345, 396, 460 Nangle, B.C., Newman, J.H., 21, 361, 463–4, 484 Nichols, John, North, Dudley, 396 Ostade, A.van, 182, 339, 350 Otway, Thomas, 197, 434 Patmore, Coventry, 23, 397, 465 ff Peabody, O.W.B., 330 f Philips, Ambrose, 339 Pichot, A., 25 ‘Pindar, Peter’, 103 Piranesi, G.B., 242 Pollok, Robert, 388 Pope, Alexander, 1, 19–20, 27, 46, 54, 74, 96, 110, 114, 129, 150, 152, 175–6, 180, 185, 197, 217, 230–1, 246, 254, 256–7, 294, 296, 301–2, 306, 317, 329, 339–40, 357–8, 361, 368, 384, 386, 398, 410–12, 424, 427–30, 435, 437–40, 449, 455, 461–2, 465–7, 469–70, 473– 7, 480–2 Porson, Richard, 20, 298 Pound, Ezra, 26–7 Poussin, Nicolas, 421 Prior, Matthew, 156, 158, 278 Propertius, 279 Pushkin, A., 24 Quarles, Francis, 56, 243, 305 Racine, Jean, 242, 317 Raphael, 80, 240, 256, 273 Rembrandt, 396, 421, 433 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 41, 144, 301, 397, 434 Richardson, Samuel, 173, 211, 461, 470 489 INDEX Robinson, H.Crabb, 20, 290, 298 Rogers, Samuel, 248–9, 251, 290, 292, 294, 340, 387, 403, 411, 435, 473 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 295 Roscoe, W.C., 2, 21, 23, 394 ff Rossetti, D.G., 21, 361, 431 Rowlandson, Thomas, 273 Ruskin, John, 360 Sainte-Beuve, C.A., 25 Saintsbury, George, 23, 475 ff Sale, A., 27 Savage, Richard, 434 Scott (of Amwell), John, 346 Scott, Sir Walter, 20, 70, 144, 219, 229, 250, 291, 294, 308, 315–16, 322, 333, 335, 378, 386–7, 396, 421–2, 435, 441, 451, 454–6, 458, 463, 476, 478, 485 Shakespeare, William, 88, 93, 151, 155, 175, 178, 180, 207, 210, 214– 16, 219, 229, 257, 261, 304– 5, 313, 317, 332–3, 355, 358, 379, 382, 387, 392, 403–4, 409, 482 Sheldon, Frederick, 21–2, 423 ff Shelley, P.B., 23, 377, 387, 396, 450, 456, 465–6, 476 Shenstone, William, 424 Shevyrev, S.P., 24 Sijbrandi, K., 23 Smith, Alexander, 397 Smith, James (and Rejected Addresses), 17, 199, 202–5, 319, 357, 372, 410, 419, 427, 438, 462–3, 470, 479 Smith, Sydney, 54 Southey, Robert, 56, 180, 210, 256, 293–4, 298, 322, 387, 388, 435 Spenser, Edmund, 153, 306 Stephen, Leslie, 21–3, 362, 364, 437 ff, 452, 458, 460–1, 464 Sterling, John, 21, 23, 360 Stewart, Dugald, 284 Stuart, James, 242 Swift, Jonathan, 156 Swinburne, A.C., 431 Talfourd,T.N.,19, 206 ff Tasso, Torquato, 119, 256 Tate, Nahum, 152 Teniers, David, 173, 182, 240, 242, 301, 334, 339, 350 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 21, 360, 368, 396, 399, 415, 421, 431, 463, 473–4, 484 Terence, 157 Terrot, C.H., 284, 296–7 Thackeray, W.M., 397, 470 Theocritus, 302 Theophrastus, 249 Thomson, James, 142, 301, 424, 483 Thurlow, Edward, Lord, 435, 465 Tibullus, 155 Titian, 80, 240 Trench, R.C., 367 Tuckerman, H.T., 346, 369 ff Tupper, Martin, 423 Turner, J.M.W., 421, 456 Vandevelde, G., 182 VanEyck,J., 421 Voltaire, 12, 175, 449 Walpole, Horace, 53 White, Gilbert, 326 Wilkie, Sir David, 173, 255, 277, 317, 352, 356 Wilson, James, 88 Wilson, John, 16–17, 19–20, 218 ff, 307 ff, 396, 476, 484 Wither, George, 56 Woodberry, G.E., 20, 365–7, 438, 451 ff Wordsworth, William, 7, 11, 16, 20, 25, 54, 56–7, 66, 70, 186, 215–16, 218–22, 248–9, 280, 290–3, 294, 308, 310–12, 317, 339, 357–8, 367, 370, 378–9, 386–7, 399, 409, 411, 415, 420–1, 424, 433, 441–3, 449– 50, 453, 455–6, 461, 463, 470, 474, 476, 478, 482–3 Young, Edward, 75, 298, 342, 348, 431–2 490 INDEX II CRABBE: WORKS (Bold type indicates a review of the poem concerned.) ‘Birth of Flattery, The’, 48–9, 52, 59, 62–3, 70, 306 Borough, The, 2–4, 8–14, 23, 80, 88, 78–146, 147, 164, 173, 176, 191, 193, 200, 282, 295, 303, 306, 318, 332, 336n, 350, 353, 359, 384, 396, 412–14, 421, 433, 442, 462, 468, 476, 479 Amusements (IX), 11 Benbow (XVI), 10, 93, 96, 105, 109, 129, 135 Blaney (XIV), 10, 82, 93–5, 105, 109, 129, 336n Brand, Sir Denys (XIII), 104, 109, 113 Clelia (XV), 95, 105, 109, 129 Condemned felon (XXIII), 78, 94, 111, 133, 235, 295, 343, 471 Election (V), 9, 80, 82, 95, 101, 108 Grimes, Peter (XXII), 10–12, 19, 23–6, 82, 93, 96, 105, 110–11, 114, 135, 138, 216–17, 306, 317, 343, 391, 407–8, 447–8, 479, 484 Jachin (XIX), 9, 11–12, 23, 81, 95, 103, 105, 110, 113, 216, 336n, 407, 446–7 Keene, Abel (XXI), 9–11, 81, 93, 96, 105, 110, 114 Orford, Ellen (XX), 10, 23, 93, 105, 110, 114, 295, 343, 434 Thomas and Sally (II), 11, 93–4, 139, 235, 295, 356, 434, 472 Thompson, Frederic (XII), 93, 129 Vicar, the (III), 9, 94, 104, 108, 139, 216, 445 Candidate, The, 4, 33–6 ‘Flirtation’, 318, 350 ‘Hall of Justice, The’, 3, 7, 50, 52–3, 60, 62, 66, 71, 77, 105, 164, 279, 384–5, 470, 474 Inebriety, 4, 477 Library, The, 4–6, 23, 37–9, 40, 46, 50, 52, 59, 69, 306, 336n, 384, 412, 433, 476–7 New Poems, 26 Newspaper, The, 4, 6, 23–4, 45–7, 50, 52, 59, 70, 306, 336n, 384, 412, 433, 477 Parish Register, The, 2, 6–8, 14, 23, 48–9, 53, 57–9, 61–5, 68, 75, 78, 81, 84, 127, 164, 200, 305–6, 310, 316, 318, 325, 336n, 350, 355–6, 433, 435, 438, 462, 469, 478–9 Ashford, Isaac, 7, 59, 65, 76–7, 82, 357 Atheist, village, 61, 69, 82 Dawson, Phoebe, 7, 19, 24, 51, 58, 65, 69, 76, 235, 307, 383, 392, 434, 448 Frankford, Mrs, 59, 470 Kirk, Nathan, 58 Lady of the manor, 59 Lloyd, Catherine, 458 Miller’s daughter, 61, 434 Monday, Richard, 7, 51, 61, 65, 68, 82, 138, 214 Poems (1807), 4, 6–8, 48–77 Poetical Works (1834), 4, 7, 18, 314–59 Posthumous Tales (and see previous entry), 18, 333, 345, 350–1, 364, 425, 430, 477 ‘Ancient Mansion, The’ (X), 320, 334, 342 ‘Barnaby, the Shopman’ (VIII), 365 ‘Belinda Waters’ (XV), 320, 352 ‘Boat Race, The’ (XVIII), 320, 470 ‘Cousins, The’ (XXI), 320, 343, 353 ‘Danvers and Rayner’ (XVII), 320, 342, 353, 365 ‘Dealer and Clerk, The’ (XVI), 352 ‘Equal Marriage, The’ (III), 319, 341, 353 ‘Family of Love, The’ (II), 319, 341 ‘Master William’ (XIX), 320, 342 491 INDEX ‘Preaching and Practice’ (XXII), 320 ‘Rachel’ (IV), 319, 341 ‘SilfordHall’ (I), 310, 334, 341 ‘Villars’ (V), 320, 342, 352 ‘Wife and Widow, The’ (XIV), 342, 353 ‘Will, The’ (XX), 320, 343 ‘Reflections…’, 62, 66 ‘Sir Eustace Grey’, 3, 11–12, 19, 26, 48–50, 52–3, 59, 62–3, 66, 70–1, 76–8, 99, 126, 164, 171, 216, 306, 316–17, 323, 328, 334, 349, 384, 388, 406, 408, 462, 478 Tales (1812), 4, 8, 12–16, 19, 22–3, 27, 147–201, 298, 307, 396, 412– 13, 424, 462, 469, 476, 479 Preface, 147–54, 175, 180 ‘Advice’ (XV), 169, 177, 195, 200 ‘Arabella’ (IX), 168, 174, 177, 201 ‘Brothers, The’ (XX), 170, 174, 177, 195, 200, 445–6 ‘Confidant, The’ (XVI), 23, 147, 160, 169, 174, 177, 195, 201, 307 ‘Convert, The’ (XIX), 170, 177, 195, 200, 409 ‘Dumb Orators, The’ (I), 167, 173, 176–7, 194, 200 ‘Edward Shore’ (XI), 23, 147, 169, 174, 177, 179, 195, 200, 216, 235, 307, 407, 448 ‘Frank Courtship, The’ (VI), 23, 168, 176–7, 179, 195, 201, 408 ‘Gentleman Farmer, The’ (III), 168, 176–7, 195, 200 ‘Jesse and Colin’ (XIII), 169, 174, 177, 201, 438 ‘Learned Boy, The’ (XXI), 170, 174, 177, 181, 195, 201, 409 ‘Lover’s Journey, The’ (X), 23, 168– 9, 174, 177–8, 182, 195, 201 ‘Mother, The’ (VIII), 60, 168, 174, 177, 181, 195, 200–1 ‘Parting Hour, The’ (II), 23, 147, 167–8, 174, 177, 195, 200, 235, 392, 448 ‘Patron, The’ (V), 147, 168, 174, 177, 182, 195, 201, 216 ‘Procrastination’ (IV), 23, 168, 177, 195, 200, 458 ‘Resentment’ (XVII), 23, 160, 170, 174, 177, 195, 200 ‘Squire and the Priest, The’, see ‘Advice’ ‘Squire Thomas’ (XII), 169, 177, 181, 195, 200 ‘Struggles of Conscience, The’ (XIV), 169, 177, 200 ‘Wager, The’ (XVIII), 170, 177, 195, 201 ‘Widow’s Tale, The’ (VII), 168, 176–7, 201 Tales of the Hall, 4, 13, 15–19, 23, 27, 218–89, 350, 361, 363–4, 367, 385, 396, 412, 416, 425, 533, 457–64, 468, 476, ‘Adventures of Richard, The’ (IV), 236, 244, 436, 459 ‘Adventures of Richard, The— concluded’ (VI), 286, 459–60 ‘Brothers, The’ (II), 250, 276 ‘Cathedral-Walk, The’ (XX), 238, 245, 251–2, 279, 288, 460 ‘Delay has Danger’ (XIII), 236, 245, 251, 278, 287, 366, 418, 459, 463 ‘Elder Brother, The’ (VII), 245, 250, 277, 286, 480 ‘Ellen’ (XVIII), 237, 245, 251, 260, 279 ‘Gretna Green’ (XV), 237, 245, 251, 278, 287 ‘Lady Barbara’ (XVI), 237, 245, 251, 260, 278, 287 ‘Maid’s Story, The’ (XI), 236, 267, 271, 278, 282, 287 ‘Natural Death of Love, The’ (XIV), 237, 245, 264, 278, 287, 459–60, 480 ‘Old Bachelor, The’ (X), 364, 429, 459, 477 ‘Preceptor Husband, The’ (IX), 236, 245 492 INDEX ‘Ruth’ (V), 225, 236, 244, 260, 267, 285, 361, 434, 448, 462 ‘Sir Owen Dale’ (XII), 23, 226, 236, 245, 251, 260, 264, 266, 278, 288– 9, 364, 392, 460 Sisters, The’ (VIII), 236, 263, 271, 286, 420, 462 ‘Smugglers and Poachers’ (XXI), 226, 238, 246, 252, 260, 280, 288, 362, 469 ‘Visit Concluded, The’ (XXII), 280 ‘Widow, The’ (XVII), 237, 251, 260, 262, 279, 288, 364, 451, 460–1 ‘William Bailey’ (XIX), 24, 238, 251, 260, 267, 279, 288, 420, 459 Village, The, 2, 4–8, 23, 40–4, 46, 50, 52, 55, 57–8, 61, 63–5, 67–8, 70– 1, 75, 80, 84, 88, 117, 127, 171, 186, 191, 200, 298, 301, 303–4, 318, 336n, 396, 413, 425, 433, 441–2, 461, 468, 470, 476–9 ‘Where am I now…’, 26 ‘Woman!’, 53, 63, 71 Works (1847), ‘World of Dreams, The’, 26, 318, 334, 349 III CRABBE: CHARACTERISTICS Aldborough, influence of, 2, 8, 22, 26, 114, 132, 425, 442–3, 451 Atmosphere, poetry without, 27, 152, 405: see also Realism Character, choice of, 16, 58, 84, 149, 223, 233–5, 241–3, 252–3, 324–5, 331–2 Character portrayal, 51, 99, 134, 163, 190–1, 193–4, 216, 222, 263, 284–5, 324, 403, 445; see also Psychological understanding and analysis Coarseness and unpleasantness, 9–10, 16–17, 23, 28, 89–92, 103–4, 114, 121–2, 125, 127–9, 135, 143, 158, 172, 181–2, 185, 279, 288, 294–5, 300, 347, 361, 393, 471–2 Comedy and humour, 9, 45, 74, 130– 1, 243–4, 253, 262, 264, 277–9, 318, 321, 364–5, 367, 417, 444–5, 458; alleged lack of, 21, 399, 408 Compassion, 10, 21, 25–6, 29, 64, 124, 404, 406–7, 427 Description, powers and quality of, 7, 10, 45, 50, 54–6, 58, 64, 74, 80, 89, 124–6, 128–9, 132, 135, 138– 9, 142, 170–1, 190, 192, 276–7, 323–4, 339, 356, 371–2, 377, 379–80, 422, 453–4; see also Precision and detail Development, 2, 14, 16, 27, 84, 239, 248, 289; lack of, 80, 161, 350–1, 425, 477 Dutch painting, comparison with, 10, 64, 74, 95, 108, 123, 168, 181, 272, 276, 284, 296, 300, 361, 370 Fiction in verse, 14, 27, 173, 194, 479 Hogarth, comparison with, 9, 13, 80, 211, 273, 295, 315, 371, 426, 432, 452, 484 Imagination, lack of, 12–13, 19–20, 28, 118, 151, 209, 290–3, 298–9, 323, 348–9, 425–6, 455–6, 482 Imagination, nature of, 21–2, 386–7, 399–403; for Romantic imagination see references to ‘Sir Eustace Grey’ Low life subjects, choice of, 79, 85–7, 89–90, 103–4, 136, 143–4, 157, 165, 178, 185, 211, 213–14, 240, 249, 296–7, 316, 322, 325, 337–8, 341, 354, 358, 375–6, 378–9, 392, 421, 428–9; see also Realism Modesty, excessive, and obsequiousness, 4, 9, 13, 71, 75, 100–1, 113, 280–1, 363 Moral attitudes and effects, 3, 9, 11, 493 INDEX 16 23, 29, 51, 56, 58, 81, 106, 158–9, 165, 193, 198–9, 206, 214, 222, 224–5, 244, 249, 254, 261, 464–6, 281–2, 294, 298, 316, 331, 333, 354, 355, 357, 381, 386, 393, 408, 444–5, 470 Names, unpoetical, 107, 188n Pathos, 9, 11, 17, 45, 53, 57, 69, 90–1, 93–4, 126, 133, 139, 190, 197, 207–9, 224, 226, 232–3, 297, 317, 325, 356, 372, 383, 392, 433–4, 450, 462; see also Compassion Pessimism, 5, 14, 17–19, 21, 23, 28, 55, 67–8, 81, 143, 159, 163, 223– 4, 244, 286–7, 291, 293–4, 302–3, 310, 312, 329, 355–6, 375, 383, 389–91, 393, 404, 416–17, 432, 452, 478 Precision and detail, 15, 17, 20, 25, 58, 150–1, 165, 178, 181, 186, 188, 192, 210–11, 213, 216, 222, 228, 290, 292, 296, 299–300, 302, 309–11, 322–3, 329, 334, 348, 354, 368–71, 382, 402–3, 409–10, 429, 433, 472 Prolixity, 9, 154, 367, 460 Prosaic manner, 2, 15, 23, 162, 187, 198, 274–5, 290, 299, 416, 418, 420, 440, 480, 484–5 Psychological understanding and analysis, 3, 12, 17, 20, 22, 26, 29, 57, 215–16, 222–3, 248, 262, 283, 296–7, 299, 327, 414, 426, 480; see also Character portrayal Qualities, summaries of, 107, 161, 164, 192, 199, 227–8, 243–4, 247, 263, 297–8, 314–15, 344, 354, 421, 430, 436, 474 Realism, 3, 11–14, 19, 27–9, 42–4, 117, 122, 152, 173, 242–3, 360, 368, 405, 426, 430, 435, 452–3, 466, 468, 477, 482; see also Atmosphere, poetry without; Low life subjects, choice of Satire, 9, 11, 23, 29, 53, 56, 67, 70, 74, 85, 99, 124, 128, 232, 264, 340, 356, 384, 394, 427, 468 Sectarians, attitudes towards, 8–10, 51, 76–7, 101–3, 108, 136–7, 140–2, 191, 250, 267–8, 278, 282–3, 406, 449, 452 Selection, lack of, 16, 20–1, 82, 89, 122, 309, 381, 472–3, 482 Style, criticisms of, 9, 14–15, 18, 23, 58, 65, 71–4, 76, 83, 96–7, 106–7, 115–16, 129–31, 136–7, 145, 161, 171, 174, 184, 188–90, 198, 201, 217, 259, 276, 305, 328, 340, 373–4, 384, 390, 398, 410–11, 419, 427–8, 435–6, 438–40, 454, 466, 479 Unity, lack of, 9, 12–13, 81, 93, 105, 142, 149, 258 Versification, 1, 15, 34, 74, 198, 217, 296–7, 328, 361, 365, 368, 427–8, 440, 455, 470–1, 473; in early poems, 5; The Library, 37; The Newspaper, 46; The Borough, 97–8, 115, 135, 145; Tales of the Hall, 254, 273–5 IV PERIODICALS (Bold type indicates first page of extracts from the periodical.) Annual Review, 7, 64 Anti-Jacobin Review, 8, 50 Athenaeum, 24 Atlantic Monthly, 451 Blackwood’s Magazine, 16, 218, 307 British Critic, 8–9, 11–12, 14–16, 63, 134, 199, 239 British Review, 13–14, 154 Christian Observer, 8–9, 11, 14, 16, 137, 255 494 INDEX Cornhill Magazine, 437 Critical Review, 5–6, 8, 12–14, 34, 37, 41, 45, 107, 175 North American Review, 18–19, 21– 22, 215, 329, 423 Oxford Review, 53 Eclectic Review, 7–8, 12–15, 17–18, 74, 99, 185, 280, 333 Edinburgh Monthly Review, 16, 247 Edinburgh Review, 6, 8–10, 14–18, 48, 54, 84, 138, 163, 217, 227, 345, 424, 457 Gentleman s Magazine, 5–6, 8–9, 12, 18, 36, 38, 44, 49, 335 Littell’s Living Age, 23 London Magazine, 19, 299 Monthly Mirror, 8–9, 12, 14, 112 Monthly Review, 5, 6, 8–9, 14, 33, 39 42, 46, 61, 80, 172, 272, 331 National Review, 394 New Monthly Magazine, 252 New York Review, 18, 354 Pamphleteer 19, 206 Quarterly Review, 6, 8, 10–11, 13–14, 18, 117, 180, 315, 334, 360, 424 Retrospective Review, 25 Revue britannique, 25 Revue de Paris, 25 Review des deux mondes, 24–5 St James’s Gazette, 465 St James’s Magazine, 20, 421 Saturday Review, 415 Scourge, 161 Tait’s Magazine, 20, 321, 367 Universal Magazine, 67, 191 495 .. .GEORGE CRABBE: THE CRITICAL HERITAGE THE CRITICAL HERITAGE SERIES General Editor: B.C.Southam The Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticism on major figures in literature. .. Crabbe than to any other poet on the grounds that Crabbe had had less justice done to him by comparison with the others The review of the 1807 Poems (No 16), whilst welcoming Crabbe back to the. .. characteristic of the new century The Critical Review did not notice the 1807 poems, whilst the Gentleman’s Magazine (No 13), typically, dealt only in the most general comment In the Monthly Review