364 CRABBE JUSTIFIABLE MAN-HATING. great feeling and beauty; - but it is difficult to make extracts. The prudent suitor of the milder and more serious sister, sneaks pitifully away when their fortune changes. The bolder lover of the more elate and gay, seeks to take a baser advantage. "Then made he that attempt, in which to fail The effects of this double trial on their different tempers are also very finely described. The gentler Lucy is the most resigned and magnanimous. The more aspiring Jane suffers far keener anguish and fiercer impatience; and the task of soothing and cheering her devolves on her generous sister. Her fancy, too, is at times a little touched by her afflictions and she writes wild and melancholy verses. The wanderings of her reason are represented in a very affecting manner; — but we rather choose to quote the following verses, which appear to us to be eminently beautiful, and make us regret that Mr. Crabbe should have indulged us so seldom with those higher lyrical effusions. "Let me not have this gloomy view, About my room, around my bed! To cool my burning brows instead. Till I, a fading flower, am dead! "I'll have my grave beneath a hill, Where runs the pure pellucid rill APPROACHES OF OLD AGE. There violets on the borders blow, And insects their soft light display, 'There will the lark, the lamb, in sport, As innocent, but not so gay. "O! take me from a world I hate, Men cruel, selfish, sensual, cold; And not a Man to meet us there."-vol i. 365 p. 212 - 215. "The Preceptor Husband" is exceedingly well ma naged but it is rather too facetious for our present mood. The old bachelor, who had been five times on the brink of matrimony, is mixed up of sorrow and mirth; but we cannot make room for any extracts, except the following inimitable description of the first coming on of old age, though we feel assured, somehow, that this malicious observer has mistaken the date of these ugly symptoms; and brought them into view nine or ten, or, at all events, six or seven years too early. "Six years had pass'd and forty ere the six, Locks of pure brown, display'd th' encroaching white; And Time's strong pressure to subdue the man : I rode or walk'd as I was wont before, But now the bounding spirit was no more; And must have all things in my order placed; 366 CRABBE SIR OWEN DALE. I took my dog and gun, but saw the brute And bless'd the shower that gave me not to choose: The active arm, the agile hand were gone; Small daily actions into habits grew, And new dislike to forms and fashions new ; I lov'd my trees in order to dispose, I number'd peaches, look'd how stocks arose, vol. i. p. 260, 261. "The Maid's Story" is rather long-though it has many passages that must be favourites with Mr. Crabbe's admirers. "Sir Owen Dale" is too long also; but it is one of the best in the collection, and must not be discussed so shortly. Sir Owen, a proud, handsome man, is left a widower at forty-three, and is soon after jilted by a young lady of twenty; who, after amusing herself by encouraging his assiduities, at last meets his longexpected declaration with a very innocent surprise at finding her familiarity with "such an old friend of her father's" so strangely misconstrued! The knight, of course, is furious; and, to revenge himself, looks out for a handsome young nephew, whom he engages to lay siege to her, and, after having won her affections, to leave her, - as he had been left. The lad rashly engages in the adventure; but soon finds his pretended passion turning into a real one- and entreats his uncle, on whom he is dependent, to release him from the unworthy part of his vow. Sir Owen, still mad for vengeance, rages at the proposal; and, to confirm his relentless purpose, makes a visit to one, who had better cause, and had formerly expressed equal thirst for revenge. This was one of the higher class of his tenantry - an intelligent, manly, good-humoured farmer, who had married the vicar's pretty niece, and lived in great comfort and comparative elegance, till an idle youth seduced her from his arms, and left him in rage and misery. It is here that the interesting part of the story begins; and few things can be more powerful or striking than the scenes that ensue. Sir Owen inquires whether MISERY AND PITY. 367 he had found the objects of his just indignation. He at first evades the question; but at length opens his heart, and tells him all. We can afford to give but a small part of the dialogue. ere I my victims found: But I did find them, in the dungeon's gloom Of a small garret · a precarious home; "And could you know the miseries they endur'd, Brought forth a famish'd child of suffering and of shame! "This had you known, and traced them to this scene, Where all was desolate, defiled, unclean, A fireless room, and, where a fire had place, Forgot your wrongs, and made their suffering less!" In that vile garret--which I cannot paint The sight was loathsome, and the smell was faint; 368 CRABBE UTTER WRETCHEDNESS EXPIATES. And now among her neighbours to explore, - Seat of virtue! chaste 6.6 Sure it was all a grievous, odious scene, Foul with compell'd neglect, unwholesome, and unclean; That arm that eye Spoke all! Sir Owen "'And you -- reliev'd?' "If hell's seducing crew Had seen that sight, they must have pitied too,' 46 4 Revenge was thine - thou hadst the power the right; To give it up was Heav'n's own act to slight.' "Tell me not, Sir, of rights, and wrongs, or powers! Then did you freely from your soul forgive?' "Sure as I hope before my Judge to live, 66 Sir Owen softly to his bed adjourn'd! Sir Owen quickly to his home return'd; or see!' |