helpless hour, nor speak severely of him when that hour was ended. Here is the greatness of Shakspeare: he never forgets our nature, and in the most unpromising circumstances he compels us to feel its sacredness. The last hours even of Falstaff he enshrouds in the dignity of death; and, by a few simple and pathetic words in the mouth of his ignorant but charitable hostess, he lays bare the mysterious struggles of an expiring soul. "A parted," she says, "even just between twelve and one, e'en at turning o' the tide; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. John? quoth I: What, man! be of good cheer. So 'a cried out, God, God, God! three or four times;

then all was cold."

How now,

Sir

Thus, as Shakspeare pictures, a man of pleasure died. Even upon him nature again exerts her sway; the primitive delights of childhood revisit his final dreaming; and he plays with flowers, and he babbles of green fields. And that voice of eternal Power, which was lost in the din of the festival, must have utterance in the travail of mortality; and exclamations, which falter to the silence of the tomb, make confession of a faith which all the practice had denied.

CRABBE.

BEFORE proceeding to speak on the poetry of Crabbe, which forms the subject of the present Lecture, allow me to make some brief allusion to his life.

The Rev. GEORGE CRABBE was born in Aldborough, in 1754. Aldborough is a seacoast village of Suffolk, on the border of the German Ocean. His parents were in straitened circumstances, and he soon entered on a youth of hard condition and severe distress. His father, a man of strong intellect, had the sagacity to perceive the son's abilities, and, what little his narrow means afforded, he gave to aid their cultivation. Partly by intervals of schooling, but mainly by his own exertions, George acquired the rudiments of English and the classics. With this imperfect instruction, he was bound apprentice to a surgeon. His first master was a tyrant and an ignoramus, and from him he endured all sorts of injury, oppression, and insult. He finished his course

with another, and he was more of a Christian and a

gentleman.

In the mean time, he wrote verses in magazines, and, like all bards since the deluge, he fell in love. Surely this business of poor poets falling in love is a great folly under the sun. If they would be content to court the Muses with Platonic wooing, they might have our forbearance; these gentle creatures can eat ambrosia with the gods, and drink water from Helicon. But when the sons of Parnassus, who have only kingdoms in the stars and castles in the clouds, presume to damsels, who need more solid sustenance than moonshine, they are guilty of most heinous crime, and if common sense were judge, they should undergo their due desert without mitigation and without mercy. But as things are managed, the rogues escape; they tell women they are angels; these angels are women, and believe them. It is, however, but the common fashion of the world, and, whether in prose or rhyme, the history of men and maidens is the same to the end of the chapter. Crabbe rejoiced in his magazine and his mistress; they were no bad things to rejoice in, and they were all he had.

Thus he arrived at that point of manhood, when all who were not provided with hereditary fortune, must enter on some settled mode of labor. He returned to

the house of his parents with at least the name of a profession. Either, however, from want of skill, or want of sphere, his profession served him to little purpose, and for a period he was not only a burden to his home, but a burden very unwillingly endured. The character of his father had undergone a melancholy change. His father had been always poor; his principal support was a humble government situation, connected with a tax at that time on salt; his income was scanty, and his temper had become unamiable; to poverty and bad temper, he added the habits of a tippler, and any leisure that his employment allowed, he spent in surly indolence in his house, or in boisterous carousals in the tavern.

Of sensitive spirit and independent character, George felt his situation a bitter bondage; and, sooner than eat the bread of idleness, he often became his father's porter, and carried sacks from the vessels to the warehouse. In the intervals of chagrin and labor, he was not unmindful of his darling pursuits; and of these intervals two complete poems were the result "The Village," and "The Library." With these he determined to go to London, and to London he went. Once there, his whole stock consisted of a very scanty wardrobe and three pounds in money. Simple as Fielding's Parson Adams, his manuscripts seemed to him a mine

of wealth, but booksellers returned them to him unread: and when, with better hopes, he presented them to the wealthy, liveried lackeys, after a few days, handed them back with an insolent version of their masters' cold refusal.

In the mean time, he was reduced to forlorn indigence. Credit with his landlady was all but exhausted, his wardrobe was in pawn, a meal had become rare, and a roof uncertain. In the extremity of wretchedness, by a happy inspiration, he wrote to the celebrated orator, Edmund Burke. The letter was eloquent-worthy of a man, and a man of genius. The poet called; the orator received him with courteous generosity. The interview, as described by Mr. Crabbe's filial biographer, is an honor to the poet and the politician. As alike creditable to literature and human nature, I extract it :

"Mr. Burke was at this period (1781) engaged in the hottest turmoils of parliamentary opposition, and his own pecuniary circumstances were by no means very affluent; yet he gave instant attention to this letter, and the verses which it inclosed. He immediately appointed an hour for my father to call upon him at his house in London; and the short interview which ensued, entirely and forever changed the nature of his fortunes. He was, in the common phrase, a made