With not a single note the purse supply,
And when she begs let men and maids deny.
Be windows those from which she dare not fall,
And help so distant 'tis in vain to call;
Still means of freedom will some power devise,
And from the baffled ruffian snatch the prize."
From all this false sublime, Crabbe was the first to free us, and to lead us into the true sublime of genuine human life. How novel at that time, and yet how thrilling, was the incident of the sea-side visitors surprised out on the sands by the rise of the tide. Here was real sublimity of distress, real display of human passion. The lady, with her children in her hand, wandering from the tea-table which had been spread on the sands, sees the boatmen asleep, the boat adrift, and the tide advancing:—
"She gazed, she trembled, and though faint her call,
It seemed like thunder to confound them all.
Their sailor-guests, the boatman and his mate,