The London Quarterly Review Volume 4 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1811 edition. Excerpt: ...of Mr. Crabbe. It is, if we are not mistaken, that he has greatly misapplied great powers; and that, although an able, he is not a pleasing poet. In this judgment we entirely acquiesce. The peculiarity of this author is, that he wishes to discard every thing like illusion from poetry. He is the poet of reality, and of reality m low life. His opinions on this subject were announced in the opening of his first poem, 'The Village and will be best explained by extracting from that work some lines which contain a general enunciation of his system. 'The village life, and ev'ry care that reigns O'er youthful peasants and declining swains; VOI.. iv. NO. vIII. 3r What labour yields, and what, that labour past, Age in its hour of languor finds at last; What form the real picture of the poor, Demand a song--the Muse can give no more. On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign, If Tityrus found the golden age again, Must sleepy bards the flatt'ring dreams prolong? Mechanic echoes of the Mantuan song? From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way? Yes, thus the Muses sing of happy swains, Because the Muses never knew their pains.--Then shall I dare these real ills to hide In tinsel trappings of poetic pride I Ly such examples taught, I paint the cot As Truth will paint it, and as bards will not--From these extracts, as well as from the constant tenor of his writings, it is clear that Mr. Crabbe condemns the common representations of rural life and manners as fictitious; that he is determined in his own sketches of them to confine himself, with more than ordinary rigour, to truth and nature;--to draw only ' the real picture of the poor, ' which, be it remembered, must necessarily, according to his opinion, .