affords an interesting illustration of his character. He had not prefixed his name to the work, nor acquainted his family with the secret of its composition, and taking a copy of the volume home with him one day, he left it on the table. His wife began reading it, while the sensitive author walked up and down the room; and at length she broke out into praise of the poem, adding: 'Ah, James, if you could but produce a poem like this!' The joyful acknowledgment of his being the author was then made, no doubt with the most exquisite pleasure on both sides. Grahame in some respects resembles Cowper. He has no humour or satire, it is true, and he has many prosaic lines, but the same powers of close and happy observation which the poet of Olney applied to English scenery, were directed by Grahame to that of Scotland, and both were strictly devout and national poets. There is no author, excepting Burns or Scott, whom an intelligent Scotsman, resident abroad, would read with more delight than Grahame. The ordinary features of the Scottish landscape he portrays truly and distinctly, without exaggeration, and often imparting to his descriptions a feeling of tenderness or solemnity. He was content with humble things; but he paints the charms of a retired cottage-life, the sacred calm of a Sabbath morning, a walk in the fields, or even a bird's nest, with such unfeigned delight and accurate observation, that the reader is constrained to see and feel with his author, to rejoice in the elements of poetry and meditation that are scattered around him, existing in the humblest objects, and in those humane and pious sentiments which impart to external nature a moral interest and beauty. The religion of Grahame was not sectarian; he was equally impressed with the lofty ritual of the English church, and the simple hill-worship of the Covenanters. He is sometimes gloomy in his seriousness, from intense religious anxiety or sympathy with his fellow-men suffering under oppression or misfortune, but he has less of this harsh fruit,

Picked from the thorns and briers of reproof, than his brother-poet Cowper. His prevailing tone is that of implicit trust in the goodness of God, and enjoyment in his creation.

From The Sabbath.'

How still the morning of the hallowed day!
Mute is the voice of rural labour, hushed
The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song.
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers,
That yester-morn bloomed waving in the breeze.
Sounds the most faint attract the ear-the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating midway up the hill.
Calmness seems throned on yon unmoving cloud.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas,

The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale;
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-sunk glen;
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise.

With dove-like wings Peace o'er yon village broods:
The dizzying mill-wheel rests; the anvil's din
Hath ceased; all, all around is quietness.
Less fearful on this day, the limping hare

Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man,
Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free,
Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large;
And, as his stiff unwieldy bulk he rolls,
His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning ray.
But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day.
On other days, the man of toil is doomed
To eat his joyless bread, lonely, the ground
Both seat and board, screened from the winter's cold
And summer's heat by neighbouring hedge or tree;
But on this day, embosomed in his home,
He shares the frugal meal with those he loves;
With those he loves he shares the heartfelt joy
Of giving thanks to God-not thanks of form,
A word and a grimace, but reverently,
With covered face and upward earnest eye.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day:
The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe
The morning air pure from the city's smoke;
While wandering slowly up the river-side,
He meditates on Him whose power he marks
In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough,
As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom
Around the roots; and while he thus surveys
With elevated joy each rural charm,

He hopes--yet fears presumption in the hope-
To reach those realms where Sabbath never ends.
But now his steps a welcome sound recalls :
Solemn the knell, from yonder ancient pile,
Fills all the air, inspiring joyful awe :
Slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-paved ground;
The aged man, the bowed down, the blind
Led by the thoughtless boy, and he who breathes
With pain, and eyes the new-made grave, well pleased;
These, mingled with the young, the gay, approach
The house of God-these, spite of all their ills,
A glow of gladness feel; with silent praise
They enter in; a placid stillness reigns,
Until the man of God, worthy the name,
Opens the book, and reverentially

The stated portion reads. A pause ensues.
The organ breathes its distant thunder-notes,
Then swells into a diapason full:

The people rising sing, with harp, with harp, And voice of psalms;' harmoniously attuned The various voices blend; the long-drawn aisles, At every close, the lingering strain prolong.

...

Nor yet less pleasing at the heavenly throne, The Sabbath service of the shepherd-boy! In some lone glen, where every sound is lulled To slumber, save the tinkling of the rill, Or bleat of lamb, or hovering falcon's cry, Stretched on the sward, he reads of Jesse's son ; Or sheds a tear o'er him to Egypt sold, And wonders why he weeps: the volume closed, With thyme-sprig laid between the leaves, he sings The sacred lays, his weekly lesson conned With meikle care beneath the lowly roof, Where humble lore is learnt, where humble worth Pines unrewarded by a thankless state. Thus reading, hymning, all alone, unseen, The shepherd-boy the Sabbath holy keeps, Till on the heights he marks the straggling bands Returning homeward from the house of prayer. In peace they home resort. Oh, blissful days! When all men worship God as conscience wills. Far other times our fathers' grandsires knew, A virtuous race to godliness devote.

A Summer Sabbath Walk.

Delightful is this loneliness; it calms
My heart pleasant the cool beneath these elms
That throw across the stream a moveless shade.
Here nature in her midnoon whisper speaks;
How peaceful every sound!-the ringdove's plaint,

Moaned from the forest's gloomiest retreat,
While every other woodland lay is mute,
Save when the wren flits from her down-coved nest,
And from the root-sprigs trills her ditty clear-
The grasshopper's oft-pausing chirp-the buzz,
Angrily shrill, of moss-entangled bee,

That soon as loosed booms with full twang away-
The sudden rushing of the minnow shoal
Scared from the shallows by my passing tread.
Dimpling the water glides, with here and there
A glossy fly, skimming in circlets gay

The treacherous surface, while the quick-eyed trout
Watches his time to spring; or from above,
Some feathered dam, purveying 'mong the boughs,
Darts from her perch, and to her plumeless brood
Bears off the prize. Sad emblem of man's lot!
He, giddy insect, from his native leaf

...

(Where safe and happily he might have lurked),
Elate upon ambition's gaudy wings,
Forgetful of his origin, and worse,
Unthinking of his end, flies to the stream,
And if from hostile vigilance he 'scape,
Buoyant he flutters but a little while,
Mistakes the inverted image of the sky
For heaven itself, and, sinking, meets his fate.
Again I turn me to the hill, and trace
The wizard stream, now scarce to be discerned;
Woodless its banks, but green with ferny leaves,
And thinly strewed with heath-bells up and down.
Now, when the downward sun has left the glens,
Each mountain's rugged lineaments are traced
Upon the adverse slope, where stalks gigantic
The shepherd's shadow thrown athwart the chasm,
As on the topmost ridge he homeward hies.
How deep the hush! the torrent's channel dry,
Presents a stony steep, the echo's haunt.
But hark a plaintive sound floating along!

'Tis from yon heath-roofed shieling; now it dies
Away, now rises full; it is the song
Which He, who listens to the hallelujahs
Of choiring seraphim, delights to hear;
It is the music of the heart, the voice
Of venerable age, of guileless youth,
In kindly circle seated on the ground
Before their wicker-door. Behold the man!
The grandsire and the saint; his silvery locks
Beam in the parting ray; before him lies,
Upon the smooth-cropt sward, the open book,
His comfort, stay, and ever-new delight;
While heedless at a side, the lisping boy
Fondles the lamb that nightly shares his couch.

An Autumn Sabbath Walk.

When homeward bands their several ways disperse,
I love to linger in the narrow field

Of rest, to wander round from tomb to tomb,
And think of some who silent sleep below.
Sad sighs the wind that from these ancient elms
Shakes showers of leaves upon the withered grass :
The sere and yellow wreaths, with eddying sweep,
Fill up the furrows 'tween the hillocked graves.
But list that moan! 'tis the poor blind man's dog,
His guide for many a day, now come to mourn
The master and the friend-conjunction rare!
A man, indeed, he was of gentle soul,
Though bred to brave the deep: the lightning's flash
Had dimmed, not closed, his mild but sightless eyes.
He was a welcome guest through all his range-
It was not wide-no dog would bay at him:
Children would run to meet him on his way,
And lead him to a sunny seat, and climb
His knee, and wonder at his oft-told tales.
Then would he teach the elfins how to plait
The rushy cap and crown, or sedgy ship:
And I have seen him lay his tremulous hand
Upon their heads, while silent moved his lips.

Peace to thy spirit, that now looks on me
Perhaps with greater pity than I felt
To see thee wandering darkling on thy way!
But let me quit this melancholy spot,
And roam where nature gives a parting smile.
As yet the bluebells linger on the sod
That copse the sheepfold ring; and in the woods
A second blow of many flowers appears,
Flowers faintly tinged, and breathing no perfume.
But fruits, not blossoms, form the woodland wreath
That circles Autumn's brow. The ruddy haws
Now clothe the half-leafed thorn; the bramble bends
Beneath its jetty load; the hazel hangs
With auburn bunches, dipping in the stream
That sweeps along, and threatens to o'erflow
The leaf-strewn banks: oft, statue-like, I gaze,
In vacancy of thought, upon that stream,
And chase, with dreaming eye, the eddying foam,
Or rowan's clustered branch, or harvest sheaf,
Borne rapidly adown the dizzying flood.

A Winter Sabbath Walk.

How dazzling white the snowy scene! deep, deep
The stillness of the winter Sabbath day-
Not even a footfall heard. Smooth are the fields,
Each hollow pathway level with the plain :
Hid are the bushes, save that here and there
Are seen the topmost shoots of brier or broom.
High-ridged the whirled drift has almost reached
The powdered keystone of the churchyard porch.
Mute hangs the hooded bell; the tombs lie buried;
No step approaches to the house of prayer.

The flickering fall is o'er: the clouds disperse,
And shew the sun, hung o'er the welkin's verge,
Shooting a bright but ineffectual beam
On all the sparkling waste. Now is the time
To visit nature in her grand attire.
Though perilous the mountainous ascent,
A noble recompense the danger brings.
How beautiful the plain stretched far below,
Unvaried though it be, save by yon stream
With azure windings, or the leafless wood!
But what the beauty of the plain, compared
To that sublimity which reigns enthroned,
Holding joint rule with solitude divine,
Among yon rocky fells that bid defiance
To steps the most adventurously bold?
There silence dwells profound; or if the cry
Of high-poised eagle break at times the hush,
The mantled echoes no response return.

But let me now explore the deep-sunk dell.
No foot-print, save the covey's or the flock's,
Is seen along the rill, where marshy springs
Still rear the grassy blade of vivid green.
Beware, ye shepherds, of these treacherous haunts,
Nor linger there too long: the wintry day
Soon closes; and full oft a heavier fall,
Heaped by the blast, fills up the sheltered glen,
While, gurgling deep below, the buried rill
Mines for itself a snow-coved way! Oh, then,
Your helpless charge drive from the tempting spot,
And keep them on the bleak hill's stormy side,
Where night-winds sweep the gathering drift away;
So the great Shepherd leads the heavenly flock
From faithless pleasures, full into the storms
Of life, where long they bear the bitter blast,
Until at length the vernal sun looks forth,
Bedimmed with showers; then to the pastures green
He brings them where the quiet waters glide,
The stream of life, the Siloah of the soul.

To My Son.

Twice has the sun commenced his annual round, Since first thy footsteps tottered o'er the ground;

Since first thy tongue was tuned to bless mine ear,
By faltering out the name to fathers dear.
Oh! nature's language, with her looks combined,
More precious far than periods thrice refined!
Oh! sportive looks of love, devoid of guile,
I prize you more than beauty's magic smile;
Yes, in that face, unconscious of its charm,
I gaze with bliss unmingled with alarm.
Ah, no! full oft a boding horror flies
Athwart my fancy, uttering fateful cries.
Almighty Power! his harmless life defend,
And, if we part, 'gainst me the mandate send.
And yet a wish will rise-would I might live,
Till added years his memory firmness give!
For, oh! it would a joy in death impart
To think I still survived within his heart;
To think he'll cast, midway the vale of years,
A retrospective look bedimmed with tears,
And tell, regretful, how I looked and spoke;
What walks I loved, where grew my favourite oak;
How gently I would lead him by the hand;
How gently use the accent of command;
What lore I taught him, roaming wood and wild,
And how the man descended to the child;
How well I loved with him, on Sabbath morn,
To hear the anthem of the vocal thorn,
To teach religion, unallied to strife,
And trace to him the way, the truth, the life.
But far and further still my view I bend,
And now I see a child thy steps attend ;
To yonder churchyard-wall thou tak'st thy way,
While round thee, pleased, thou see'st the infant play;
Then lifting him, while tears suffuse thine eyes,
Pointing, thou tell'st him, 'There thy grandsire lies.'

The Thanksgiving off Cape Trafalgar. Upon the high, yet gently rolling wave, The floating tomb that heaves above the brave, Soft sighs the gale that late tremendous roared, Whelming the wretched remnants of the sword. And now the cannon's peaceful thunder calls The victor bands to mount their wooden walls, And from the ramparts, where their comrades fell, The mingled strain of joy and grief to swell: Fast they ascend, from stem to stern they spread, And crowd the engines whence the lightnings sped : The white-robed priest his upraised hands extends; Hushed is each voice, attention leaning bends; Then from each prow the grand hosannas rise, Float o'er the deep, and hover to the skies. Heaven fills each heart; yet home will oft intrude, And tears of love celestial joys exclude. The wounded man, who hears the soaring strain, Lifts his pale visage, and forgets his pain; While parting spirits, mingling with the lay, On hallelujahs wing their heavenward way.

GEORGE CRABBE.

The REV. GEORGE CRABBE, whom Byron has characterised as 'Nature's sternest painter, yet the best,' was of humble origin, and born at Aldborough, in Suffolk, on the Christmas-eve of 1754. His father was collector of the salt-duties, or salt-master, as he was termed, and though of poor circumstances and violent temper, he exerted himself to give George a superior education. It is pleasing to know that the old man lived to reap his reward, in witnessing the celebrity of his son, and to transcribe, with parental fondness, in his own handwriting, the poem of The Library. Crabbe has described the unpromising scene of his nativity with his usual force and

correctness :

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 withered ears;
Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,
Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye :
There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,
And to the ragged infant threaten war;
There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil;
There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;
Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf,
The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf;
O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,
And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade;
With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound,
And a sad splendour vainly shines around.
So looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn,
Betrayed by man, then left for man to scorn;
Whose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose,
While her sad eyes the troubled breast disclose;
Whose outward splendour is but folly's dress,
Exposing most, when most it gilds distress.

The poet was put apprentice in his fourteenth year to a surgeon, and afterwards practised in Aldborough; but his prospects were so gloomy, that he abandoned his profession, and proceeded to London as a literary adventurer. His whole stock of money amounted to only three pounds. Having completed some poetical pieces, he offered them for publication, but they were rejected. In the course of the year, however, he issued a poetical epistle, The Candidate, addressed to the authors of the Monthly Review. It was coldly received, and his publisher failing at the same time, the young poet was plunged into great perplexity and want. He wrote to the premier, Lord North, to Lord-chancellor Thurlow, and to other noblemen, requesting assistance; but in no case was an answer returned. At length, when his affairs were desperate, he applied to Edmund Burke, and in a modest yet manly statement disclosed to him the situation in which he stood. Burke received him into his own house, and exercised towards him the most generous hospitality. While under his happy roof, the poet met Mr Fox, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others of the statesman's distinguished friends. In the same year (1781) he published his poem The Library, which was favourably noticed by the critics. Lord Thurlow-who now, as in the case of Cowper, came with tardy notice and ungraceful generosity-invited him to breakfast, and at parting presented him with a bank-note for a hundred pounds. Crabbe entered into sacred orders, and was licensed as curate to the rector of his native parish of Aldborough. In a short time, Burke procured for him the situation of chaplain to the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle. This was a great advancement for the poor poet, and he never afterwards was in fear of want. He seems, however, to have felt all the ills of dependence on the great, and in his poem of The Patron, and other parts of his writings, has strongly depicted the evils of such a situation. In 1783 appeared The Village, which had been seen and corrected by Johnson and Burke. Its success was instant and complete. Some of the descriptions in the poem-as that of the parish workhouse -were copied into all the periodicals, and took that place in our national literature which they still retain. Thurlow presented him with two small livings then in his gift, telling him at the

the table, 'welcome peaceful evening in,' but the amenities of refined and intellectual society were constantly present with him, or at his call. Yet he did not, like Cowper, attempt to describe them, or to paint their manifold charms. When he took up his pen, his mind turned to Aldborough and its wild amphibious race-to the parish workhouse, where the wheel hummed doleful through the day-to erring damsels and luckless swains, the prey of overseers or justices-or to the haunts of desperate poachers and smugglers, gipsies and gamblers, where vice and misery stalked undisguised in their darkest forms.

He stirred up the dregs of human society, and exhibited their blackness and deformity, yet worked them into poetry. Like his own Sir Richard Monday, he never forgot the parish. It is true that village-life in England in its worst form, with the old poor and game laws and nonresident clergy, was composed of various materials, some bright and some gloomy, and Crabbe drew them all. His Isaac Ashford is as honourable to the lowly English poor as the Jeanie Deans or Dandie Dinmont of Scott are to the Scottish character. His story of the real mourner, the faithful maid who watched over her dying sailor, is a beautiful tribute to the force and purity of humble affection. In The Parting Hour and The Patron are also passages equally honourable to the poor and middle classes, and full of pathetic and graceful composition. It must be confessed, however, that Crabbe was in general a gloomy painter of life-that he was fond of depicting the unlovely and unamiable-and that, either for poetic effect or from painful experience, he makes the bad of life predominate over the good. His pathos and tenderness are generally linked to something coarse, startling, or humiliating to disappointed hopes or unavailing sorrow

Still we tread the same coarse way,
The present 's still a cloudy day.

The minuteness with which he dwells on such subjects sometimes makes his descriptions tedious, and apparently unfeeling. He drags forward every defect, every vice and failing, not for the purpose of educing something good out of the evil, but, as it would seem, merely for the purpose of completing the picture. In his higher flights, where scenes of strong passion, vice, or remorse are depicted, Crabbe is a moral poet, purifying the heart, as the object of tragedy has been defined, by terror and pity, and by fearful delineations of the misery and desolation caused by unbridled passion. His story of Sir Eustace Grey is a domestic tragedy of this kind, related with almost terrific power, and with lyrical energy of versification. His general style of versification is the couplet of Pope-he has been wittily called 'Pope in worsted stockings'-but less flowing and melodious, and often ending in points and quibbles. Thus, in describing his cottage furniture, he says

No wheels are here for either wool or flax,
But packs of cards made up of sundry packs.

His thrifty housewife, Widow Goe, falls down in sickness

Heaven in her eye, and in her hand her keys.

This jingling style heightens the effect of his

humorous and homely descriptions; but it is too much of a manner, and mars the finer passages. Crabbe has high merit as a painter of English scenery. He is here as original and forcible as in delineating character. His marine landscapes are peculiarly fresh and striking; and he invests even the sterile fens and barren sands with interest. His objects are seldom picturesque ; but he noted every weed and plant-the purple bloom of the heath, the dwarfish flowers among the wild gorse, the slender grass of the sheepwalk, and even the pebbles, sea-weed, and shells amid

The glittering waters on the shingles rolled. He was a great lover of the sea, and once, as his son relates, after being some time absent from it, mounted his horse and rode alone sixty miles from his house, that he might inhale its freshness and gaze upon its waters.

The Parish Workhouse and Apothecary.
From The Village.

Theirs is yon house that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;
There children dwell who know no parents' care;
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there;
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
And crippled age with more than childhood-fears;
The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they!
The moping idiot and the madman gay.

Here too the sick their final doom receive, Here brought amid the scenes of grief, to grieve, Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow, Mixed with the clamours of the crowd below; Here sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan, And the cold charities of man to man : Whose laws indeed for ruined age provide, And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride; But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh, And pride embitters what it can't deny. Say ye, oppressed by some fantastic woes, Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose; Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance With timid eye, to read the distant glance; Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease, To name the nameless ever-new disease; Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, Which real pain and that alone can cure ; How would ye bear in real pain to lie, Despised, neglected, left alone to die? How would ye bear to draw your latest breath Where all that's wretched paves the way for death? Such is that room which one rude beam divides, And naked rafters form the sloping sides; Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen, And lath and mud are all that lie between ; Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patched, gives way To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day: Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread, The drooping wretch reclines his languid head; For him no hand the cordial cup applies, Or wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes; No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile, Or promise hope till sickness wears a smile.

But soon a loud and hasty summons calls, Shakes the thin roof, and echoes round the walls; Anon, a figure enters, quaintly neat,

All pride and business, bustle and conceit,