FOOTNOTES:

“Man after man they from the trial shrank,And Dowling ever was the last that drank.”

“Man after man they from the trial shrank,

And Dowling ever was the last that drank.”

But we must leave the old reprobate, and go on to a far subtler delineation of character. Sir Denys Brand, to use Crabbe’s own words, was “maybe too highly placed for an author, who seldom ventures above middle life to delineate.” It is admitted that Sir Denys was a real person, and the biographer withholds his name out of consideration for his family.[10]It must be remembered that Crabbe’s nature was both proud and sensitive, and the scathing satire he expends on Sir Denys was probably provoked by some real or fancied slight.

He is one of the trustees of the almshouses. He took the office—

“True ’twas beneath him; but to do men goodWas motive never by his heart withstood.”

“True ’twas beneath him; but to do men good

Was motive never by his heart withstood.”

Sir Denys is an aristocratic prig of the first water, and Crabbe hated prigs. He is one of those men who can be, with a certain amount of truth, described as possessing all the virtues:

“In him all merits were decreed to meet,Sincere though cautious, frank and yet discreet,Just all his dealings, faithful every word,His passions’ master and his temper’s lord.”

“In him all merits were decreed to meet,

Sincere though cautious, frank and yet discreet,

Just all his dealings, faithful every word,

His passions’ master and his temper’s lord.”

His benevolence was splendid, and known to all men:

“He left to meaner minds the simple deed,By which the houseless rest, the hungry feed;His was a public bounty, vast and grand,’Twas not in him to work with viewless hand.He the first lifeboat plann’d; to him the placeIs deep in debt—’twas he revived the race.”

“He left to meaner minds the simple deed,By which the houseless rest, the hungry feed;His was a public bounty, vast and grand,’Twas not in him to work with viewless hand.

“He left to meaner minds the simple deed,

By which the houseless rest, the hungry feed;

His was a public bounty, vast and grand,

’Twas not in him to work with viewless hand.

He the first lifeboat plann’d; to him the placeIs deep in debt—’twas he revived the race.”

He the first lifeboat plann’d; to him the place

Is deep in debt—’twas he revived the race.”

Yet nobody liked him—

“’Twould give me joy [says Crabbe] some gracious deed to meetThat has not called for glory in the street;Who felt for many, could not always shun,In some soft moment to be kind to one;And yet they tell us, when Sir Denys died,That not a widow in the borough cried.”

“’Twould give me joy [says Crabbe] some gracious deed to meet

That has not called for glory in the street;

Who felt for many, could not always shun,

In some soft moment to be kind to one;

And yet they tell us, when Sir Denys died,

That not a widow in the borough cried.”

III. Perhaps it may be said that the subject of my lecture was after all rather a commonplace old gentleman, and if what I have said leaves this view, it is because I have failed to convey the effect which the study of his works has left upon me. He certainly made a great impression in his time, and was hailed as a true poet in an age of poets. Nor is an age always wrong when it acclaims a man in whom posterity sees little merit. To compare Crabbe with Byron as a poet would be as absurd as to place his little stories on a level with the romances of Scott, whether in prose or verse. But in his own time men rated him very highly, and this is the more remarkablebecause he was essentially a man of the eighteenth century, who achieved his reputation in the nineteenth. He saturated himself in Pope and Dryden, and the wits of a bygone age, and never conformed to the taste of his own. The romantic movement, much as he admired Scott’s writings, never influenced Crabbe nor does he seem to have been affected by the Lake Poets. He was simply himself: simple-minded if sensitive, full of courage, and with a quiet dignity of his own. Unworldly, yet remarkably shrewd, curiously blind to the beauties of Nature and of art, yet wonderfully alive to the marvels of the world and the pathos of life. Stern and uncompromising as a realist, he lacked neither sympathy nor imagination, and possessed a saving sense of descriptive humour. Lord Thurlow said of him, “He’s as like Parson Adams as twelve to a dozen, by G—d,” and he has much of the winning simplicity of Fielding’s charmingclerical creation. And yet he had the elevation of character and the genius with fearless hand to tear the veil which hid the lives of the poor from their richer neighbours, to expose the cruelty, injustice, and rapacity of an age which for all its greatness was singularly callous and unsympathetic of weakness and suffering; and Crabbe may take his place not only with the poets of his time, but with the Clarksons, the Howards, the Frys, and the good men and women who succeeded in inaugurating an era of practical humanity. We need not grudge him the generous commendation of the greatest among his contemporary poets—

“Nature’s sternest painter and her best.”

FOOTNOTES:[2]My father’s first cousin, the Ven. Robert Groome, Archdeacon of Suffolk, the intimate friend of Edward Fitzgerald, was the grandson of a native of Aldeburgh who owned theUnitysmack in which Crabbe sailed to London in 1780. My maternal great-grandparents, as will appear, also knew the poet.[3]One cannot fail to recall Horace’s generous acknowledgement of the liberality of his father, “macro pauper agello,” in sending him to Rome to be educated.Sat.I. vi. 71.[4]In the “Life” by his son it is implied that Crabbe was Maskill’s assistant; but this is denied in Huchon’s “George Crabbe and his Times,” p. 63.[5]So the “Life.” Huchon points out that his name at this time was Long, and that he subsequently assumed the name of North. Crabbe went to London on theUnitysmack, the property of Robinson Groome, grandfather of Archdeacon Groome, the intimate friend of E. Fitzgerald. Huchon,op. cit., p. 81.[6]“The Village.”[7]In the “Life” Crabbe is said to have prescribed for his parishioners at Muston with great success.[8]For this abominable system see Walpole, “History of England from 1815,” vol. i, p. 163, and his quotations from Romilly and Yonge. Dickens, of course, alludes to the apprenticing of parish-boys in “Oliver Twist.”[9]Lockhart’s “Life of Scott.” Huchon points out several obvious discrepancies. “George Crabbe,” etc., p. 435.[10]He is said to have been “Challoner Arcedekne, who built Glevering Hall,” near Parham. Huchon, “George Crabbe,” etc., p. 309. The bitterness of the satire lies in the little known fact that at the time the family of Arcedekne was not in the eighteenth century reckoned among the old county families: their fortune having been recently acquired in the East Indies.

[2]My father’s first cousin, the Ven. Robert Groome, Archdeacon of Suffolk, the intimate friend of Edward Fitzgerald, was the grandson of a native of Aldeburgh who owned theUnitysmack in which Crabbe sailed to London in 1780. My maternal great-grandparents, as will appear, also knew the poet.

[3]One cannot fail to recall Horace’s generous acknowledgement of the liberality of his father, “macro pauper agello,” in sending him to Rome to be educated.Sat.I. vi. 71.

[4]In the “Life” by his son it is implied that Crabbe was Maskill’s assistant; but this is denied in Huchon’s “George Crabbe and his Times,” p. 63.

[5]So the “Life.” Huchon points out that his name at this time was Long, and that he subsequently assumed the name of North. Crabbe went to London on theUnitysmack, the property of Robinson Groome, grandfather of Archdeacon Groome, the intimate friend of E. Fitzgerald. Huchon,op. cit., p. 81.

[6]“The Village.”

[7]In the “Life” Crabbe is said to have prescribed for his parishioners at Muston with great success.

[8]For this abominable system see Walpole, “History of England from 1815,” vol. i, p. 163, and his quotations from Romilly and Yonge. Dickens, of course, alludes to the apprenticing of parish-boys in “Oliver Twist.”

[9]Lockhart’s “Life of Scott.” Huchon points out several obvious discrepancies. “George Crabbe,” etc., p. 435.

[10]He is said to have been “Challoner Arcedekne, who built Glevering Hall,” near Parham. Huchon, “George Crabbe,” etc., p. 309. The bitterness of the satire lies in the little known fact that at the time the family of Arcedekne was not in the eighteenth century reckoned among the old county families: their fortune having been recently acquired in the East Indies.

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