They will not study and they dare not fight,
he exclaims; making an exception for Mendoza and other famed Semitic bruisers. The poem is of some value to the social historian, and the tales of the country coquette, and the horrible and haunted Peter Grimes, have a gloomy vigour, and somewhat resemble, in poetry, the moral pictures of Hogarth.
Crabbe's later works were collections of tales in verse, and with all their merits their versification condemns them to general neglect. His "Lady Barbara, or the Ghost" is not so successful in rendering the well-known story of "The Beresford Ghost" as is Scott's early ballad "The Eve of St John". To read with attention novels of everyday life narrated in the metre of Pope, without the skill of Pope, requires a vigorous effort.
In his Tales (as when a sturdy orthodox farmer expels the demon of scepticism from his son by a sound trouncing) Crabbe is often somewhat remote from our sympathetic modern tolerance of honest doubt. His method of narration is obsolete. In "The Patron," the patronized youth of humble birth, who has loved the Squire's daughter, is neglected,
And in the bed of death the youth reposed.
The nymph of his adoration is thus corrected by her mother:—
"Emma," the lady cried, "my words attend,
Your syren-smiles have killed your humble friend;
The hopes you raised can now delude no more,
Nor charms, that once inspired, can now restore."
People did not speak in that style in Miss Austen's day; or in any other day.
Crabbe died in the same year as Sir Walter Scott, who, like Byron, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, appreciated that in him which was rare, excellent, and original.