The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-06-30

Squire, the composition Of the weekly Ger
mon. Is revealed In Crabbe's poems by
a uniformity which Is fatal 10 their per.
mRnenoe.
There is no doubt that the poverty which
he had to endure in youth and the crises
which he had to faoe more than opoo during
his life Bteeled his character and gwvS him
strength, but q strength which Waa gEr-
chased at the expense Of breadth. The
bioKrapher points out that Crabbe's Tola"
tons with the great, far from inolining
him to expansiveness, had contributed TO
his isolation, for he had not escaped humiliA-
tons. II was only on the threshold Of
old age that he met with attentions and
hattering civilities from persons conspicus
Gus for rank or intelligence. Under stoce0g
he expanded, for his nature, which In
trinsically was amiable and Bociahl9. hd
contracted and hardened simply for the
purpose OF making q frmer stand agairst
the mediocrity and dulness Of his daily
life. This habitual constraint had given
Crabbe's mind a bias which In spite OF al
commencing influences never entirely
disappeared. M. Huchon also shows hat
Crabbe's speculative and religious, moral
and political ideas were hampered by
tenets which he was precluded by pro-
fessional decorum from discussing. nfide
rcvolutionaries like Byron and Shelley
frightened him. Prudence was his rule Of
conduct; the golden mean his ideal. As
Wordswo rth disceTned long ago, his motives
for writing verse were not high. It was
not inspiration which moved him, but
rather the hope OF gain. In short, he had
no lofty aspirations. He remained essen
TALLY bourgeois. Another Characteristic
Of Crabbe Is that he had no ear for harmony;
IL he took any interest in music 1t a.
simply out Of curiosity. The sense Of taste
and that OF smell were also but little de-
veloped in him; the biographer observes
that he never describes flowers by their
perfume. He had the touch and the eye
of a naturalist, not Of an artist. He has
none OF the stuff Of a lyric poet. He seldom
uses metaphor, that figure OF speech which
makes language "a vision" He prefers
comparison; moreover his similes have a
tendency to become little scenes or episodes,
independent Of the main narrative, and to
attain a disproportionate length. Never do
we get from Crabbe the single creative
epithet, the thought lightning which the
mind flashes on an object to illumine ita
outline.
II Crabbe was anything he was q ~realist.
yet he did not sympathize with the wish
Of the great contemporary realist Words
worth to revolutionize the style OF poetry
by clothing 1t in a rustic form OF speech.
Crabbe adhered to the classic model OF
poetic diction, perfected by Dryden and
Pope, recognizable by it's so-oalled 'ele-
gance" and preference for the flowers
Of speech. A young girl is called a maid
and for choice a "nymph'; a peasant is a
Swain" poets are sons Of verse; hshea
are described as the hnny tribe and
country folk as 'the rural tribe The
~periphrasis seemed TO Crabbe, as it did to
pope, an indispensable embelishment.
Borrowed from Pope. also, 10 the frequent
occurrence Of antitheses which oppose
sdiectives or ~substantives to one another
in the two halves Of the same line. We
see the disciple OF Pope, again, in the habit
Of closing each couplet regularly with the
end OF the second line. In his early works
Crabbe seldom, II ever. runs one couplet
into another; to vary the cadence he con.
fines himself to alternate masculine and
feminine casuras. Later. however. from
1898 onward. tired. perhaps. OF this mo-
notony and no doubt encouraged by the
example Of Wordswort and Scott, he
adopted for his minor poems the eight
syllable metre In irregular strophes, the
Spenserian stanza and even the four stress
rhythm.
In a word the author Of this biography
cannot be accused OF overestimating his
subject. He comedies that Crabbe was mos
a great artist. With him form always TO
manned a secondary consideration; sub
stance was the main point. His gifts were
those Of a man Of science. not those OF q
poet: observation. force. above all, love
OF truth. 1t was by these that he achieved
fame and earned sympathy He came In
an age when English poetry. which had long
been imprisoned in the didactic and eatirical
grooves. wanted to recover touch with
reality, to return 10 the study Of nature.
Crabbe helped to prepare the way for q
poet like Wordsworth. who, endowed with
a keener sensibility and possessed OF the
true artistic faculty. added lyTism to real
ism. "A writer of transitions, classical by
origin, realistic by temperament and ro-
mantle only on very rare occasions, Crabbe
failed to harmonic the contradictions
which encountered one another in himself
and in his poetry: taking his subjects from
common life, he imposed on them the stih.
jerky movement Of the heroic couplet; by
nature a satirist and a man Of science, he
became a poet and a clergyman. Yet. al.
though his character and his work lacked
the elevation and the harmony which are
the stamp OF true greatness. he welded a
decisive influence at the right moment
He was one Of those men. rare in every age,
who are bold enough to look reality in the
face and TO relate what they have seen,
regardless Of prejudices. How unimportant
by comparison seem the timidities OF his
philosophical and religious speculations, the
defects Of his style. His intellectual probity.
his robust plainspokenness, remain a great
example. Thomas Hardy. the p~oet-novehst
OF Wessex, has testified that @his earliest
influence in the direction Of realism was
obtained from Crabbe's works.