The Life and Poetical Works of the Rev. George Crabbe. Edited by his son [George Crabbe] ... With portrait, etc

Front matter

' T H E JMFJE AKB FOITICAIL WC01': ■ . OT THE UP U" "17 B> ' J^1 ¥_* _T^ IS _f TO1 .f^l WB a TO. TO in* IS Ata) J)|J l)M#iltto DHM ¥©™S C.R.Les__e,__\.A pmx" KOTOS'. joior snnoMy, .aibe^abxe street. 1847. THE LIFE AND POETICAL WORKS OF THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE. EDITED BY HIS SON. Complete in ©ne Volume. WITH POETEAIT AND VIGNETTE. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1847. LONDON : Printed by William Clowes and Soxsy Stamford Street. CONTENTS. III CONTENTS. Paoe LIFE OF THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE ix. Dedication: To the Rev. W. L. Bowles, Canon of Salisbury, &c xi. Preface xft. Chapter I. 1754 — 1775 1 II. 1775—1780 8 III. 1780 13 IV. 1781 25 V. 1782—1783 31 VI. 1784—1792 36 VII. 1792—1804 42 VIII. 1805—1814 50 IX. 1814—1819 60 X. 1823—1832 80 THE POETICAL WORKS OF THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE 93 Advertisement to the Poems 94 Dedication : To the Right Honourable Lord Holland 95 Preface to Poems published in 1807 96 THE LIBRARY 101 THE VILLAGE: Book 1 114 II 118 Appendix: Character of Lord Robert Manners 121 THE NEWSPAPER: Dedication : To the Right Honourable Lord Thurlow 12-1 To the Reader 124 The Newspaper 125 al CONTENTS.

I V Page THE PARISH REGISTER: 13^ Part I. Baptisms 141 II. Marriages III. Burials 146 THE BIRTH OF FLATTERY 156 REFLECTIONS UPON THE SUBJECT " Quid iuvat errores, mersa jam puppe, fateri ? « 1 fiO Quid lacrymæ delicta juvant commissa secutæ ?" lolJ SIR EUSTACE GREY 162 THE HALL OF JUSTICE : Part 1 167 II 168 WOMAN 17° THE BOROUGH: Dedication: To his Grace the Duke of Rutland 171 Preface 172 Letter I. General Description 175 II. The Church 178 III. The Vicar, the Cerate, &c 182 IV. Introduction 185 Sects and Professions in Religion 188 V. The Election 194 VI. Professions — Law 196 VII. Professions — Physic 200 VIII. Trades 204 IX. Amusements 206 X. Clubs and Social Meetings 209 XI. Inns 213 XII. Players 216 XIII. The Almshouse and Trustees 220 XIV. Inhabitants of the Almshouse : Life of Blaney 223 XV. „ „ „ „ Clelia 225 XVI. „ „ „ „ Benbow 227 XVII.

The Hospital and Governors 230 XVLTI. The Poor and their Dwellings 232 XIX. The Poor of the Borough : The Parish Clerk 236 xxii » „ „ Ellen Orford 239 XXI. „ „ „ „ Abel Keene 243 XXII. » » ,> „ Peter Grimes 246 XXIII. Prisons 250 XXIV. Schools CONTENTS. V OCCASIONAL PIECES: Page The Ladies of the Lake 260 Infancy — A Fragment 260 The Magnet „. 262 Storm and Calm....*. 262 Satire 262 Belvoir Castle 263 Lines in Laura's Album 264 Lines written at Warwick 264 On a Drawing of the Elm Tree under which the Duke of Wellington stood several times during the battle of waterloo 265 On receiving from a Lady" a Present of a Ring 266 To a Lady with some Poetical Extracts 266 To a Lady on leaving her at Sidmouth 266 To Sarah, Countess of Jersey, on her Birthday 266 To a Lady who desired some Verses at parting 267 THE WORLD OF DREAMS 268 TALES Dedication : To Her Grace Isabella, Duchess Dowager of Rutland 271 Preface 272 Tale I. The Dumb Orators ; or, the Benefit of Society 276 II.

Appendix

570 No. I. Inebriety, A Poem; published at Ipswich, in 1775 570 II. Fragments of Verse, from Mr. Crabbe's early Note-Books 572 " Ye gentle Gales" 572 Mira 573 Hymn — " Oh, thou, who taught my infant eye " 573 The Wish 573 The Comparison 573 Goldsmith to the Author 573 Fragment — "Proud, little Man, opinion's slave" 573 The Resurrection 574 My Birth-day, December 24, 1778 574 To Eliza — " The Hebrew King with spleen possess 574 Life — " Think ye the joys that fill our early day " 574 The Sacrament — " O! sacred gift of God to man" 574 Night — " The sober stillness of the night " 574 Fragment — Written at Midnight 575 Time 575 The Choice 575 in. The Candidate; a Poetical Epistle to the Authors of the Monthly Review 576 INDEX THE LIFE OF THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE. b OF HIS THAT b 2 ( si ) TO THE REV. W. L. BOWLES, CANON OF SALISBURY, &c. &c. THESE MEMOIRS DEPARTED FRIEND AND BROTHER-POET ARE INSCRIBED, IN TESTIMONY OF GRATEFUL AND AFFECTIONATE RESPECT WHICH HAS DESCENDED FROM MR. CRABBE TO HIS CHILDREN'S CHILDREN. )

Preface

. The success of some recent biographical works, evidently written by unpractised hands, suggested to me the possibility that my recollections of my father might be received with favour by the public. The rough draft of the following narrative was accordingly drawn up, and submitted to my father's friend, Mr. Thomas Moore, whom at that time I had never seen, and who, in returning it, was so kind as to assure me that he had read it with much interest, and conceived that, with a little correction, it might gratify the readers of Mr. Crabbe's Poetical "Works. I afterwards transmitted it to his friend Mr. Rogers, who expressed himself in terms equally flattering to an inexperienced writer ; and who — as indeed, Mr. Moore had done before — gave me the most valuable species of assistance I could have received, by indicating certain passages that ought to be obliterated.

Mr. Moore, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Lockhart, Mrs. Joanna Baillie, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Clark, and others of my father's friends, have, moreover, taken the trouble to draw up brief summaries of their personal reminiscences of him, with which I have been kindly permitted to enrich this humble Memoir. The letters and extracts of letters from Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Roger Wilbraham, Mr. Canning, Mrs. Leadbeater, and other eminent friends of Mr. Crabbe, now deceased, which are introduced in the following pages, have been so used with the permission of their representatives ; and I have to thank the Duke of Rutland, the Marquis of Lans downe, Earl Grey, Lord Holland, the Right Hon. J. "W. Croker, the Rev. Richard Turner, and the other living gentlemen, whose correspondence has been as serviceable to my labours as it was honourable to my father's character, for leave to avail myself of these valuable materials.

I cannot conclude, without expressing my sense of the important assistance which has been rendered to me, in finally correcting my work and arranging it for the press, by a friend high in the scale of literary distinction ; who, however, does not permit me to mention his name on this occasion. On the assistance I have received from mv brother, and another member of my own family, it would be impertinent to dwell. Pucklechtjrch, January 6, 1834. LIFE OF THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE.

Chapter I

1754—1775. although his health was evidently decaying, there was nothing to forbid the hope that he might linger for years among us, in the enjoyment of such comforts as can smooth the gradual descent of old age to the tomb ; and I pleased myself with the fond anticipation, that when I should have completed my manuscript, he him self might be its first critic, and take the trouble to correct it wherever I had fallen into any mistakes of importance. But he was at last carried off by a violent illness, of short duration — and thus ended for ever the most pleasing dream of my authorship. I mention these things to caution the reader against construing into unfilial levity certain passages of this little work : but, at the same time, I feel that Mr. Crabbe himself would have wished his son, if he attempted to write his life at all, to do so, as far as might be possible, with the unbiassed fairness of one less intimately connected with him.

To impartiality, certainly, I cannot pretend ; but I hope partiality does not necessarily imply misrepresentation. I shall endeavour to speak of him as his manly and honest mind would have wished me to do. I shall place before the reader, not only his nobler qualities, but the weaknesses and infirmities which mingled with them — and of which he was more conscious than of the elevation of his genius. To trick out an ideal character for the public eye, by either the omission or the ex aggeration of really characteristic traits, is an office which my respect for my father — even if there were nothing else — would render it impos sible for me to attempt. I am sustained by the belief that his countrymen at large respect his memory too much to wish that his history should be turned into anything like a romance, and the hope that they will receive with indulgence a faithful narrative, even though it should be a homely one.

I have in vain endeavoured to trace his de scent beyond his grandfather. Various branches of the name appear to have been settled, from a remote period, in Norfolk, and in different sea faring places on the coast of Suffolk ; and it Mr. Crabbe's Birth, Parentage, and Early Education — His Apprenticeship to a Surgeon — His Attachment to Miss Elmy, afterwards his Wife — Publication of " Inebriety," a Poem. As one of the severest calamities of life, the loss of our first and dearest friends, can be escaped by none whose own days are not prematurely cut short, the most pious affection must be contented to pray that the affliction may come on us gradually, and after we have formed new connections to sustain us, and, in part at least, fill up the void. In this view, the present writer has every reason to consider with humble thankfulness the period and circumstances of his father's de parture.

The growing decline of his bodily strength had been perceptible to all around him for several years. He himself had long set the example of looking forward with calmness to the hour of his dissolution ; and if the firmness and resignation of a Christian's death-bed must doubly endear his memory to his children, they also afford indescribable consolation after the scene is closed. At an earlier period, Mr. Crabbe's death would have plunged his family in insupportable suffering : but when the blow fell, it had many alleviations. With every softening circumstance, however, a considerable interval must pass, before the sons of such a parent can bear to dwell on the minor peculiarities of his image and character ; — a much longer one, ere they can bring themselves to con verse on light and ludicrous incidents connected with his memory.

The tone of some passages in the ensuing narrative may appear at variance with these feelings ; and it is therefore necessary for me to state here, that the design of drawing up some memoirs of my father's life, from his own fireside anecdotes, had occurred to me several years ago, and that a great part of what I now lay before the public had been committed to writing more than a twelvemonth before his decease. At the time when I was thus occupied, B ( *« )

PREFACE.

. The success of some recent biographical works, evidently written by unpractised hands, suggested to me the possibility that my recollections of my father might be received with favour by the public. The rough draft of the following narrative was accordingly drawn up, and submitted to my father's friend, Mr. Thomas Moore, whom at that time I had never seen, and who, in returning it, was so kind as to assure me that he had read it with much interest, and conceived that, with a little correction, it might gratify the readers of Mr. Crabbe's Poetical Works. I afterwards transmitted it to his friend Mr. Rogers, who expressed himself in terms equally flattering to an inexperienced writer ; and who— as indeed, Mr. Moore had done before— gave me the most valuable species of assistance I could have received, by indicating certain passages that ought to be obliterated.

Mr. Moore, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Lockhart, Mrs. Joanna Baillie, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Clark, and others of my father's friends, have, moreover, taken the trouble to draw up brief summaries of their personal reminiscences of him, with which I have been kindly permitted to enrich this humble Memoir. The letters and extracts of letters from Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Roger Wilbraham, Mr. Canning, Mrs. Leadbeater, and other eminent friends of Mr. Crabbe, now deceased, which are introduced in the following pages, have been so used with the permission of their representatives ; and I have to thank the Duke of Rutland, the Marquis of Lans downe, Earl Grey, Lord Holland, the Right Hon. J. W. Croker, the Rev. Richard Turner, and the other living gentlemen, whose correspondence has been as serviceable to my labours as it was honourable to my father's character, for leave to avail myself of these valuable materials.

I cannot conclude, without expressing my sense of the important assistance which has been rendered to me, in finally correcting my work and arranging it for the press, by a friend high in the scale of literary distinction ; who, however, does not permit me to mention his name on this occasion. On the assistance I have received from my brother, and another member of my own family, it would be impertinent to dwell. Pucklechurch, January 6, 1834. LIFE OF THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE. although his health was evidently decaying, there was nothing to forbid the hope that he might linger for years among us, in the enjoyment of such comforts as can smooth the gradual descent of old age to the tomb ; and I pleased myself with the fond anticipation, that when I should have completed my manuscript, he him self might be its first critic, and take the trouble to correct it wherever I had fallen into any mistakes of importance.

But he was at last carried off by a violent illness, of short duration — and thus ended for ever the most pleasing dream of my authorship. I mention these things to caution the reader against construing into unfilial levity certain passages of this little work : but, at the same time, I feel that Mr. Crabbe himself would have wished his son, if he attempted to write his life at all, to do so, as far as might be possible, with the unbiassed fairness of one less intimately connected with him. To impartiality, certainly, I cannot pretend ; but I hope partiality does not necessarily imply misrepresentation. I shall endeavour to speak of him as his manly and honest mind would have wished me to do. I shall place before the reader, not only his nobler qualities, but the weaknesses and infirmities which mingled with them — and of which he was more conscious than of the elevation of his genius.

To trick out an ideal character for the public eye, by either the omission or the ex aggeration of really characteristic traits, is an office which my respect for my father — even if there were nothing else — would render it impos sible for me to attempt. I am sustained by the belief that his countrymen at large respect his memory too much to wish that his history should be turned into anything like a romance, and the hope that they will receive with indulgence a faithful narrative, even though it should be a homely one. I have in vain endeavoured to trace his de scent beyond his grandfather. Various branches of the name appear to have been settled, from a remote period, in Norfolk, and in different sea faring places on the coast of Suffolk ; and it B

CHAPTER I.

1754—1775. Mr. Crabbe's Birth, Parentage, and Early Education — His Apprenticeship to a Surgeon— His Attachment to Miss Elmy, afterwards his Wife — Publication of " Inebriety," a Poem. As one of the severest calamities of life, the loss of our first and dearest friends, can be escaped by none whose own days are not prematurely cut short, the most pious affection must be contented to pray that the affliction may come on us gradually, and after we have formed new connections to sustain us, and, in part at least, fill up the void. In this view, the present writer has every reason to consider with humble thankfulness the period and circumstances of his father's de parture. The growing decline of his bodily strength had been perceptible to all around him for several years. He himself had long set the example of looking forward with calmness to the hour of his dissolution ; and if the firmness and resignation of a Christian's death-bed must doubly endear his memory to his children, they also afford indescribable consolation after the scene is closed.

At an earlier period, Mr. Crabbe's death would have plunged his family in insupportable suffering : but when the blow fell, it had many alleviations. With every softening circumstance, however, a considerable interval must pass, before the sons of such a parent can bear to dwell on the minor peculiarities of his image and character ; — a much longer one, ere they can bring themselves to con verse on light and ludicrous incidents connected with his memory. The tone of some passages in the ensuing narrative may appear at variance with these feelings ; and it is therefore necessary for me to state here, that the design of drawing up some memoirs of my father's life, from his own fireside anecdotes, had occurred to me several years ago, and that a great part of what I now lay before the public had been committed to writing more than a twelvemonth before his decease.

At the time when I was thus occupied, the captain of a Liverpool slave-ship. Return ing from a successful voyage, he married the owner's daughter ; and on his next excursion, he perished by an insurrection of the slaves. The negroes, having mastered the crew, set the whole of them adrift in an open boat ; and nei ther Captain Crabbe nor any of his companions were ever again heard of. The fourth brother, William, also took to a seafaring life. Being made prisoner by the Spaniards, he was carried to Mexico, where he became a silversmith, marseems probable that the first who assumed it was a fisherman.1 A pilot, by name Crabbe, of Walton, was consulted as a man of remarkable experience, about the voyage of Edward the Third, previous to the battle of Cressy. The Crabbes of Norfolk have been, for many generations, in the station of farmers, or wealthy yeo men ; and I doubt whether any of the race had ever risen much above this sphere of life ; for though there is now in the possession of my uncle at Southwold an apparently ancient coat of aims, — gules, three crab-fish, or, — how or whence it came into the hands of his father we have no trace, and therefore I cannot attach much weight to such a shadowy token of gentle pretensions.

George Crabbe, the Poet's grandfather, was a burgess of Aldborough, who became, in his latter days, collector of the customs in that port, but must have died in narrow circumstances ; since his son, named also George, and originally educated for trade, appears to have been, very early in life, the keeper of a parochial school in the porch of the church of Orford. From this place he removed to Norton, near Loddon, in Norfolk, where he united the humble offices of schoolmaster and parish clerk. He at length returned to Aldborough, where, after acting for many years as warehouse-keeper and deputy collector, he rose to be collector of the salt duties, or Salt-master. He was a man of strong and vigorous talents, skilful in business of all sorts, distinguished in particular for an extra ordinary faculty of calculation ; and during many years of his life was the factotum, as the Poet expressed it, of Aldborough.

Soon after his final settlement in his native town, he married a widow of the name of Loddock, a woman of the most amiable disposition, mild, patient, affectionate, and deeply religious in her turn of mind ; and by her he had six children, all of whom, except one girl, lived to mature years. George Crabbe, the Poet, was the eldest of the family ; and was born at Aldborough, on the Christmas-eve of 1754. 2 His next brother, Robert, was bred to the business of a glazier, and is now living in retirement at Southwold. John Crabbe, the third son, served for some time in the royal navy, and became subsequently ried, and prospered, until his increasing riches attracted a charge of Protestantism ; the conse quence of which was much persecution. _ He at ion. He at last was obliged to abandon Mexico, his pro perty, and his family ; and was discovered, in the year 1803, by an Aid borough sailor, on the coast of Honduras, where again he seems to have found some success in business.

This sailor was the only person he had seen for many a year who could tell him anything of Aldborough and his family : and great was his perplexity when he was informed, that his eldest brother, George, was a clergyman— the sailor, I dare say, had never himself heard of his being a poet. " This cannot be our George," said the wanderer — " he was a doctor!" This was the first, and it was also the last, tidings that ever reached my father of his brother William ; and, upon the Aldbo rough sailor's story of his casual interview, it is obvious that the" poet built his tale of "The Parting Hour," whose hero, Allen Booth, " yielded to the Spanish force," and — " no more Return'd exulting to his native shore." Like William Crabbe, " There, hopeless ever to escape the land, He to a Spanish maiden gave his hand : In cottage shelter'd from the blaze of day He saw his happy infants round him play, — Where summer shadows, made by lofty trees, Waved o'er his seat,"and soothed his reveries."

But— " ' Whilst I was poor,' said Allen, ' none would care What my poor notions of religion were ; I preach'd no foreign doctrine to my wife, And never mention'd Luther in my life ; Their forms I follow'd, whether well or sick, And was a most obedient Catholick. But I had money — and these pastors found My notions vague, heretical, unsound.' 1 " I cannot account for the vanity of that one of my an cestors who first (being dissatisfied with the four letters which composed the name of ' Crab,' the sour fruit, or ' Crab,* the crusty fish) added his be by way of disguise. Alas! he gained nothing worth his trouble ; but he has brought upon me, his descendant alter I know not how many generations, a question beyond my abilities to answer." — Mr. Crabbe to Mr. Chantrey, Dec. 11, 1822. '2 When my grandfather first settled in Aldborough, he lived in an old house in that range of buildings which the sea has now almost demolished.

The chambers projected far over the ground-floor ; and the windows were small, with dia mond panes, almost impervious to the light. In this gloomy dwelling the Poet was born. The house of which Mr Bernard Barton has published a print as " the birth-place of Crabbe " was inhabited by the family during my father's boyhood. A view of it, by St'anfield, forms the vignette to this volume. " Alas, poor Allen! through his wealth were seen Crimes that by poverty conceal'd had been : Faults that in dusty pictures rest unknown, Are in an instant through the varnish shown. They spared his forfeit life, but bade him fly ; Or for his crime and contumacy die. Fly from all scenes, all objects of delight ; His wife, his children, weeping in his sight, All urging him to flee — he fled, and cursed his flight.

He nest reluted how he found a way, Guideless and grieving, to Campeachy Bay : There, in the woods, he wrought, and there among Some labouring seamen heard his native tongue : Again he heard — he seized an offer'd hand — * And when beheld you last our native land ?' He cried ; ' and in what country ? quickly say.' The seamen answer'd — strangers all were they — One only at his native port had been ; He landing once the quay and church had seen." &c. I have often heard my father describe a tremendous spring-tide of, I think, the 1st of January, 1779, when eleven houses here were at once demolished ; and he saw the breakers dash over the roofs, curl round the walls, and crush all to ruin. The beach consists of successive ridges — large rolled stones, then loose shingle, and, at the fall of the tide, a stripe of fine hard sand.

Vessels of all sorts, from the large heavy troll boat to the yawl and prame, drawn up along the shore— fishermen preparing their tackle, or sorting their spoil — and nearer the gloomy old town-hall (the only indication of municipal dig nity) a few groups of mariners, chiefly pilots, taking their quick short walk backwards and forwards, every eye watchful of a signal from the offing — such was the squalid scene that first opened on the author of " The Village." Nor was the landscape in the vicinity of a more engaging aspect — open commons and sterile farms, the soil poor and sandy, the herb age bare and rushy, the trees " few and far between," and withered and stunted by the bleak breezes of the sea. The opening picture of " The Village " was copied, in every touch, from the scene of the Poet's nativity and boyish days : — The youngest of this family, Mary, became the wife of Mr. Sparkes, a builder in her native town, where she died in 1827.

Another sister, as has been mentioned, died in infancy ; and I find among my fathers papers the following lines, referring to the feelings with which, in the darkening evening of life, he still recurred to that early distress : — " But it was misery stung me in the day Death of an infant sister made his prey ; For then first met and moved my early fears A father's terrors and a mother's tears. Though greater anguish I have since endured, Some heal'd in part, some never to be cured, Yet was there something in that first-born ill So new, so strange, that memory feels it still." MS. The second of these couplets has sad truth in every word. The fears of the future poet were as real as the tears of his mother, and the " ter rors" of his father. The Salt-master was a man of imperious temper and violent passions; but the darker traits of his character had, at this period, showed themselves only at rare intervals, and on extraordinary occasions.

He had been hitherto, on the whole, an exemplary husband and father ; and was passionately devoted to the little girl, whose untimely death drew from him those gloomy and savage tokens of misery which haunted, fifty years after, the memory of his gentler son. He was a man of short stature, but very robust and powerful ; and he had a highly marked countenance, not unlike in linea ments, as my father used to say, to that of Howard the philanthropist ; but stamped with the trace of passions which that illustrious man either knewnot or had subdued. " Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er, Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor ; From thence a length of burning sand appears, Where the thin harvest waves its wither'd ears ; Rank weeds, that every art and care defy, Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye ; There thistles spread their prickly arms afar, And to the ragged infants threaten war."

The " broad river," called the Aid, approaches the sea close to Aldborough, within a few hun dred yards, and then turning abruptly continues to run for about ten miles parallel to the beach, — from which, for the most part, a dreary stripe of marsh and waste alone divides it,— until it at length finds its embouchure at Orford. The scenery of this river has been celebrated as lovely and delightful, in a poem called " Slaughden Vale," wTitten by Mr. James Bird, a friend of my father's; and old Camden talks of "the beau tiful vale of Slaughden." I confess, however, that though I have ever found an indescribable charm in the very weeds of the place, I never could perceive its claims to beauty. Such as it is, it has furnished Mr. Crabbe with many of his happiest and most graphical descriptions : and the same may be said of the whole line of coast from Orford to Dunwich, every feature of which has somewhere or other been reproduced in his writings.

The quay of Slaughden, in particular, has been painted with all the minuteness of a Dutch landscape : — Aldborough (or, as it is more correctly written, Aldeburgh) was in those days a poor and wretched place, with nothing of the elegance and gaiety which have since sprung up about it, in consequence of the resort of watering parties. The town lies between a low hill or cliff, on which only the old church and a tew better houses were then situated, and the beach of the German Ocean. It consisted of two parallel and unpaved streets, running between mean and scrambling houses, the abodes of seafaring men, pilots, and fishers. The range of houses nearest to the sea had suffered so much from repeated invasions of the waves, that only a few scattered tenements appeared erect among the desolation.3 a " From an accurate plan of the borough, which was taken in 1559, it appears that the church was then more than ten times its present distance from the shore ; and also that there were Denes of some extent, similar to those at Yarmouth, between the town and the sea, which have long been swal lowed up and lost.