The life of the Rev. George Crabbe, LL.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 favor 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 viii PREFACE.

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 Lansdowne. 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 labors as it was honorable 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, Jan. 6, 1834.

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. 1

CHAPTER H.

1775—1780.

Termination of Mr. Crabbe's Apprenticeship. — Visit to London. — He sets up for himself at Aldborough. — Failure of his Plans there. — He gives up his Business, and proceeds to London as a Literary Adventurer 28

CHAPTER HL

Mr. Crabbe's Difficulties and Distresses in Loudon. — Publication of his Poem, " The Candidate." — His unsuccessful Application to Lord North, Lord Shelburne, and other eminent Individuals.

— His " Journal to Mira." 46

CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Crabbe's Letter to Burke, and its consequences. — The Publication of " T h£- Lib rary." — He is domesticated at Beaconsfield.

— Takes Orders. — Is appointed Curate at Aldborough. . 85

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER. V.

1782 — 1783.

Mr. Crabbe's Appointment as domestic Chaplain to the Duke of Rutland. — Removes to Belvoir Castle. — Publication of " The Village." 106

CHAPTER VI.

1784 — 1792.

Mr. Crabbe marries. — He resides successively at Belvoir Castle, at his Curacy of Stathern, and at his Rectory of Muston. — Increase of his family. — Publication of " The Newspaper." — Visits and Journeys. — His Mode of Life, Occupations, and Amusements. 122

CHAPTER VII.

1792 — 1804.

Mr. Crabbe's Residence in Suffolk, — At Parham, — At Glemham, — And at Rendham 144

CHAPTER VIII.

1805—1814.

Mr. Crabbe's Second Residence in Muston. — PubUcation of " The Parish Register." — Letters from eminent Individuals. — Visit to Cambridge. — Appearance of " The Borough," and of the " Tales in Verse." — Letters to and from Sir Walter Scott and others. — A Month in London. — The Prince Regent at Belvoir. — Death of Mrs. Crabbe. — Mr. Crabbe's Removal from Leicestershire — Lines written at Glemham after my Mother's Decease. 173

CONTENTS. XI

CHAPTER IX.

1814 — 1819.

Mr. Crabbe's Residence and Habits of Life at Trowbridge. — His Study of Fossils. — His Correspondence with Mary Leadbeater. ' — His Journal kept during a Visit to London. — Letters to and from Mr. Crabbe. — His " Tales of the Hall." — Visit to Sir Walter Scott at Edinburgh, &c 206

CHAPTER X.

1823 — 1832.

The closing Years of Mr. Crabbe's Life. — Annual Excursions. — Domestic Habits. — Visit to Pucklechurch. — His last Tour to Clifton, Bristol, &c. — His Illness and Death. — His Funeral 275

LIFE

THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE.

MR. CRABBE'S birth, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY EDUCATION. HIS APPRENTICESHIP TO A SURGEON. HIS ATTACH- MENT TO MISS ELMY, AFTERWARDS HIS WIFE. PUBLI- CATION OF "inebriety," a poem.

As one of tlie 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 departure. 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 1 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 converse on light and ludicrous incidents connected with his memory. The tone of some passages in the ensuing narrative may appear at variance w^ith 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, 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 himself 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 construinor 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 m.ingled 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 exaggeration of really characteristic traits, is an office which my respect for my father — even if there were nothing else — would render it impossible 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 any thing 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 descent beyond his grandfather. Various branches of the name appear to have been settled, from a remote period, in Norfolk, and in different seafaring places on the coast of Suffolk ; and it seems probable that the first who assumed it was a fisherman.* A pilot by name Crabbe, of Walton, was

* " I cannot account for the vanity of that one of my ancestors 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 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 yeomen ; 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 South wold an apparently ancient coat of arms, — 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 extraordinary faculty of calculation ; and, during many years of his life, was the factotum, as the Poet expressed it, of Aldborough. Soon after his

trouble ; but he has brought upon ine, his descendant after 1 know not how many generations, a question beyond my abilities to answer." — Mr. Crabbe to Mr. Chantrey, Dec. 11, 1822.

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.* His next brother, Robert, was bred to the business of a glazier, and is now livinor in retirement at Southwold. John Crabbe, the third son, served for some time in the royal navy, and became subsequently the captain of a Liverpool slave-ship. Returning 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 neither 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, married, and prospered, until his increasing riches attracted a charge of Protestantism ; the consequence of which was much persecution. He at last was

* 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 diamond 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.

1*

Q LIFE OF CRABBE.

obliged to abandon Mexico, his property, and his family ; and was discovered, in the year 1803, by an Aldborough 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 any thing 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 dodo?' ! " This was the first, and it was also the last, tidings that ever reached my father of his brother William ; and, upon the Aldborough 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 Returned 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 sheltered 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 preached no foreign doctrine to my wife, And never mentioned Luther in my life ; Their forms I followed, whether well or sick, And was a most obedient Catholick.

But I had money — and these pastors found My notions vague, heretical, unsound.'

" Alas, poor Allen ! through this wealth were seen Crimes that by poverty concealed had been : Faults that in dusty pictures rest unknown. Are in an instant through the varnish shown. They spared his forfeit life, hut 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 next related how he found a way, Guideless and grieving, to Campeachy Bay : There in the woods, he wrought, and there among Some laboring seamen heard his native tongue : Again he heard. — he seized an offered hand — ' And when beheld you last our native land ? ' He cried, ' and in what country ? quickly say.' The seamen answered — strangers all were they — One only at his native port had been ; He landing once the quay and church had seen." &c.

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 father's 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 healed in part, some never to be cured. Yet w^as 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 "terrors" 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 lineaments, as my father used to say, to that of Howard the philanthropist ; but stamped with the trace of passions which that illustrious man either knew not or had subdued.

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 few 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 rancre 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. I have often heard my father describe a tremendous spring-tide of, I think, the first 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 loUed 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 dignity) 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 herbage bare and rushy, the trees " feiv 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 :

" 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 weaves its withered ears ;

* " From an accurate plan of the borough, which was taken in 1559, it appear? 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 of Yarmouth, between the town and the sea, which have long been swallowed up and lost. After very high tides, the remains of wells have been frequently discovered below high-watermark." — Mdborough Described, by the Rev. James Ford, p. 4.

Rank weeds, that every art and care defy. Reign o'er the land, and rob the bhghted 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 hundred 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," written by Mr. James Bird, a friend of my father's; and old Camden talks of *' the beautiful vale of Slaucrhden." 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 : —

" Here samphire banks and saltwort bound the flood, There stakes and sea- weeds withering on the mud ; And higher up a ridge of all things base. Which some strong tide has rolled upon the place. . . . Yon is our quay ! those smaller hoys from town. Its various wares for country use bring down." &c. &c.

The powerful effect with which Mr. Crabbe has depicted the ocean itself, both in its calm and its tempestu-

ALDBOROUGH. H

ous aspects, may lead many to infer that, had he been born and educated in a region of mountains and forests, he might have represented them also as happily as he has done the slimy marshes and withered commons of the coast of Suffolk ; but it is certain that he visited, and even resided in, some of the finest parts of our island in after-life, without appearing to take much delight in the grander features of inland scenery ; and it may be doubted whether, under any circumstances, his mind would ever have found much of the excitement of delight elsewhere than in the study of human beings. And certainly, for one desthied to distinction as a portrayer of character, few scenes could have been more fiivorable than that of his infancy and boyhood. He was cradled among the rough sons of the ocean, — a daily witness of unbridled passions, and of manners remote from the sameness and artificial smoothness of polished society. At home, as has already been hinted, he was subject to the caprices of a stern and imperious, though not unkindly nature ; and, probably, few whom he could familiarly approach but had passed through some of those dark domestic tragedies in which his future strength was to be exhibited. The common people of Aldborough in those days are described as —

" a wild, amphibious race, With sullen woe displayed in every face ; Who far from civil arts and social fly, And scowl at strangers with suspicious eye.'^

Nor, although the family in which he was born happened to be somewhat above the mass in point of situation, was the remove so great as to be marked with any considerable difference in point of refinement. Masculine

12 LIFE OF CKABBE.

and robust frames, rude manners, stormy passions, laborious days, and, occasionally, boisterous nights of merriment, — among such accompaniments was born and reared the Poet of the Poor.

His father, at this early period, was still, as I have already noticed, on the whole, domestic in his habits ; and he used occasionally to read aloud to his family in the evenings, passages from Milton, Young, or some other of the graver classics, with, as his son thought long afterwards, remarkable judgment, and with powerful effect : but his chosen intellectual pursuit was mathematical calculation. He mingled with these tastes not a little of the seafaring habits and propensities of the place. He possessed a share in a fishing-boat, in which he not unfrequently went to sea ; and he had also a small sailingboat, in which he delighted to navigate the river.

The first event which was deeply impressed on my father's memory was a voyage in this vessel. A party of amateur sailors was formed — the yacht club of Aldborough — to try the new purchase ; a jovial dinner prepared at Orford, and a merry return anticipated at night; and his fond mother obtained permission for George to be one of the company. Soon after sunrise, in a fine summer morning, they were seated in their respective vessels, and started in gallant trim, tacking and manoeuvring on the bosom of the flickering water, as it winds gently towards its junction with the sea. The freshness of the early dawn, the anticipation of amusements at an unknovv^n place, and no little exultation in his father's crack vessel, ** made it," he said, " a morning of exquisite delight ; " and, among the JMSS. which he left, are the following verses on this early incident : —

" Sweet was the morning's breath, the inland tide, And our boat gUding, where alone could glide Small craft — and they oft touched on either side. It was my first-born joy — I heard them say, * Let the child go ; he will enjoy the day ; For children ever feel delighted when They take their portion and enjoy with men.'

" The linnet chirped upon the furze as well, To my young sense, as sings the nightingale. Without was Paradise — because within Was a keen relish, without taint of sin."

But it appears that, as in other sublunary pleasures, the best part of this day's sport was the anticipation of the morning ; for he adds, —

" As the sun declined.

The good found early I no more could find. The men drank much to whet the appetite. And, growing heavy, drank to make them light ; Then drank to relish joy, then further to excite. The lads played idly with the helm and oar. And nervous women would be set on shore. And ' civil dudgeon ' grew, and peace would smile no more. Till on the colder water faintly shone The sloping light — the cheerful day was gone. In life's advance, events like this I knew, — So they advanced, and so they ended too. The promised joy, that like this morning rose. Broke on the view — then clouded at its close." MS.

Though born and brought up almost within the washing of the surge, the future Poet had but few qualifications for a sailor. The Salt-master often took his boys a-fishing with him ; and sorely was his patience tried with the awkwardness of the eldest. " That boy," he would say, " must be a fool. John, and Bob, and Will are all of some use about a boat ; but what will that 2 tiling ever be good for?" This, however, was only the passion of the moment ; for Mr. Crabbe perceived early the natural talents of his eldest son, and, as that son ever gratefully remembered, was at more expense with his education than his worldly circumstances could well afford.

My father was, indeed, in a great measure, self-educated. After he could read at all — and he was a great favorite with the old dame who taught him — he was unwearied in reading ; and he devoured without restraint whatever came into his hands, but especially works of fiction — those little stories and ballads about ghosts, witches, and fairies, which were then almost exclusively the literature of youth, and which, whatever else might be thought of them, served, no doubt, to strike out the first sparks of imagination in the mind of many a youthful poet. Mr. Crabbe retained, to the close of life, a strong partiality for marvellous tales of even this humble class. In verse he delighted, from the earliest time that he could read. His father took in a periodical work, called '' Martin's Philosophical Magazine," which contained at the end of each number, a sheet of " occasional poetry." The Salt-master irreverently cut out these sheets when he sent his magazines to be bound up at the end of the year ; and the " Poet's Corner " became the property of George, who read its contents until he had most of them by heart. The boy ere long tried to imitate the pieces which he thus studied ; and one of which, he used to say, particularly struck his childish fancy by this terrible concluding couplet, —

" The boat went down in flames of fire, Which n»ade the people all admire."

BUNGAY. 15

Mild, obliging, and the most patient of listeners, he was a great favorite with the old dames of the place. Like his own " Richard," many a friendly

" matron wooed him, quickly won, To fill the station of an absent son."

He admired the rude prints on their walls, rummaged their shelves for books or ballads, and read aloud to those whose eyes had failed them, by the winter evening's fireside. Walking one day in the street, he chanced to displease a stout lad, who doubled his fist to beat him ; but another boy interfered to claim benefit of clergy for the studious George. " You must no meddle with him," he said ; '' let Jii?n alone, for he ha' got I'arning."