Book II

. 113–4.

_‘Takes the rose,’ etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 4.

‘_In the extremity of an oath._’ Probably an adaptation of a common Shakesperian expression.

[MR. CRABBE]

To _The London Magazine_ for May 1821, Hazlitt contributed an essay on Crabbe, under the heading ‘Living Authors, No. V.’ The greater part of this essay was republished in _The Spirit of the Age_ (see vol. IV. pp. 348 _et seq._), but some passages were omitted which are here supplied.

In the Magazine the first paragraph (which differs to some extent from the opening of the _Spirit of the Age_ essay) runs as follows:

‘The object of Mr. Crabbe’s writings seems to be, to show what an unpoetical world we live in: or rather, perhaps, the very reverse of this conclusion might be drawn from them; for it might be said, that if this is poetry, there is nothing but poetry in the world. Our author’s style might be cited as an answer to Audrey’s inquiry, “Is poetry a true thing?” If the most feigning poetry is the truest, Mr. Crabbe is of all poets the least poetical. There are here no ornaments, no flights of fancy, no illusions of sentiment, no tinsel of words. His song is one sad reality, one unraised, unvaried note of unavailing woe. Literal fidelity serves him in the place of invention; he assumes importance by a number of petty details; he rivets attention by being prolix. He not only deals in incessant matters of fact, but in matters of fact of the most familiar, the least animating, and most unpleasant kind; but he relies for the effect of novelty on the microscopic minuteness with which he dissects the most trivial objects—and, for the interest he excites on the unshrinking determination with which he handles the most painful. His poetry has an official and professional air. He is called out to cases of difficult births, of fractured limbs, or breaches of the peace; and makes out a parish register of accidents and offences. He takes the most trite, the most gross and obvious, and revolting part of nature, for the subject of his elaborate descriptions; but it is nature still, and Nature is a great and mighty goddess. “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.”[82] It is well for the reverend author that it is so. Individuality is, in his theory, the only definition of poetry. Whatever is, he hitches into rhyme. Whoever makes an exact image of any thing on the earth below, however deformed or insignificant, according to him, must succeed and he has succeeded. Mr. Crabbe is one of the most popular and admired of our living writers. That he is so, can be accounted for on no other principle than the strong ties that bind us to the world about us and our involuntary yearnings after whatever in any manner powerfully and directly reminds us of it. His Muse is not one of the daughters of Memory, but the old toothless mumbling dame herself, doling out the gossip and scandal of the neighbourhood, recounting, _totidem verbis et literis_, what happens in every place in the kingdom every hour in the year, and fastening always on the worst as the most palatable morsels. But she is a circumstantial old lady, communicative, scrupulous, leaving nothing to the imagination, harping on the smallest grievances, a village oracle and critic, most veritable, most identical, bringing us acquainted with persons and things just as they happened, and giving us a local interest in all she knows and tells. The springs of Helicon are, in general, supposed to be a living stream, bubbling and sparkling, and making sweet music as it flows; but Mr. Crabbe’s fountain of the Muses is a stagnant pool, dull, motionless, choked up with weeds and corruption; it reflects no light from heaven, it emits no cheerful sound:—his Pegasus has not floating wings, but feet, cloven feet that scorn the low ground they tread upon;—no flowers of love, of hope, or joy spring here, or they bloom only to wither in a moment; our poet’s verse does not put a spirit of youth in every thing, but a spirit of fear, despondency and decay; it is not an electric spark to kindle and expand, but acts like the torpedo touch to deaden and contract: it lends no rainbow tints to fancy, it aids no soothing feelings in the heart; it gladdens no prospect, it stirs no wish; in its view the current of life runs slow, dull, cold, dispirited, half-underground, muddy, and clogged with all creeping things. The world is one vast infirmary; the hill of Parnassus is a penitentiary; to read him is a penance; yet we read on! Mr. Crabbe is a _fascinating_ writer. He contrives to “turn diseases to commodities,” and makes a virtue of necessity. He puts us out of conceit with this world, which perhaps a severe divine should do; yet does not, as a charitable divine ought, point to another. His morbid feelings droop and cling to the earth; grovel, where they should soar; and throw a dead weight on every aspiration of the soul after the good or beautiful. By degrees, we submit and are reconciled to our fate, like patients to a physician, or prisoners in the condemned cell. We can only explain this by saying, as we said before, that Mr. Crabbe gives us one part of nature, the mean, the little, the disgusting, the distressing; that he does this thoroughly, with the hand of a master; and we forgive all the rest!’—

The essay then proceeds as in _The Spirit of the Age_, with a few trifling variations, down to the words ‘inscribed to the Rutland family!’ (vol. IV. p. 351, last line), after which there is the following long passage, omitted from that work [the quotations are indicated in brackets]:

‘But enough of this; and to our task of quotation.’ The poem of _The Village_ sets off nearly as follows:

‘“No; cast by Fortune on a frowning coast,” etc. [_The Village_, i. 49–62].

‘This plea, we would remark by the way, is more plausible than satisfactory. By associating pleasing ideas with the poor, we incline the rich to extend their good offices to them. The cottage twined round with real myrtles, or with the poet’s wreath, will invite the hand of kindly assistance sooner than Mr. Crabbe’s “ruin’d shed”; for though unusual, unexpected distress excites compassion, that which is uniform and remediless produces nothing but disgust and indifference. Repulsive objects (or those which are painted so) do not conciliate affection, or soften the heart.’

‘“Lo! where the heath with withering brake grown o’er,” etc. [_The Village_, i. 63–84].[83]

‘This is a specimen of Mr. Crabbe’s taste in landscape-painting, of the power, the accuracy, and the hardness of his pencil. If this were merely a spot upon the canvas, which might act as a foil to more luxuriant and happier scenes, it would be well. But our valetudinarian “travels from Dan to Beersheba, and cries it is all barren.” Or if he lights “in a favouring hour” on some more favoured spot, where plenty smiles around, he then turns his hand to his human figures, and the balance of the account is still very much against Providence, and the blessings of the English Constitution. Let us see.

‘“But these are scenes where Nature’s niggard hand,” etc. [_The Village_, I. 131–153.][84]

‘Grant all this to be true; nay, let it be told, but not told in “mincing poetry.”[85] Next comes the WORKHOUSE, and this, it must be owned, is a master-piece of description, and the climax of the author’s inverted system of rural optimism.

‘“Thus groan the Old, till by disease opprest,” etc. [_The Village_, I. 226 to the end of