George Crabbe and his Times 1754-1832

A Critical and Biographical Study

René Huchon

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429655760
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This book was first published in 1968 First appearing in 1907, René Huchon with the help of original manuscripts rewrote the biography of Crabbe published by his son in 1834. As the title suggests, however, Huchon was not merely concerned with the presentation of Crabbe as a literary figure in isolation, and by conjuring up the atmosphere and background of the eighteenth century he is able to shed new light on Crabbe's poetry.There are descriptions of Aldborough, of the desolate heaths and marshy wastes where Crabbe spent his unhappy youth, which together with his background of poverty, and familiarity with the life of the country poor, led him to revolt against the current trend of pastoral poetry.

At the time the most detailed study of Crabbe, this work is of foremost importance, for rarely is a poety placed so securely in his setting, and both followers of the poet, and devotees of the eighteenth century will welcome this being freely available agian.

FIFTH PART

CRABBE AS WRITER OF TALES AND MORALIST

CHAPTER I

THE “TALES IN VERSE”

I. Pathos.—II. Humour.—III. Resignation and idyllic life.—IV. Verdict of contemporaries. General features of the work.

CONSIDERED from the point of view of evolution, the works hitherto analysed—The Village, The Parish Register, and The Borough—tend by a slow but steady growth to produce the “tale in verse.” As if Chaucer had never composed his Canterbury Tales, as if Dry den and Pope had not imitated or translated them, Crabbe seems to create, little by little and out of his own resources, that literary form to which his persistent realism imparts an undeniable originality. The germ of it, not disengaged from its satirical and didactic integument, may be found in The Village, where the description of the labourer still remains, as we have seen, of an abstract kind; five-and-twenty years later The Parish Register exhibits portraits drawn from the life and distinctly individualised; finally, in The Borough, these characters, assuming more and more ample proportions, become regular “lives.” The poet has only, by an effort of construction, to make two of these personages act and react on each other, and the “tale” will come into existence. The story of Abel Keene had already brought together the dissolute brother and the resolutely virtuous and pious sister, who grieves at the excesses of her unworthy relative and dies broken-hearted.¹ But this, in The Borough, was only an isolated case, a sort of stepping-stone to a future development. The new vein, which a fortunate coincidence had brought to light, had to be worked, and Crabbe, somewhat slow at making a start, was impelled in that direction by Jeffrey, who was well inspired on this occasion. “We own we have a very strong desire,” the critic had written, “to see Mr Crabbe apply his great powers to the construction of some interesting and connected story. He has great talent for narration; and that unrivalled gift in the delineation of character, which is now used only for the creation of detached portraits, might be turned to admirable account in maintaining the interests and enhancing the probability of an extended train of adventures.”¹ Crabbe did not feel equal to carrying out this ambitious programme: he knew he had no turn for devising a complicated plot, and doubtless remembered his fruitless attempts at novel-writing ten years earlier.² With the unerring instinct of an artist conscious of his strong and weak points, he refused to court failure again, but admitted that “the characters at his disposal” might be grouped in “small societies,”³ each of which would form a tale. Such was the origin of these Tales in Verse, which were published by Hatchard on September 14th, 1812.⁴ Let us examine them with sympathy, let us find out what new elements they contribute to the poet’s work; perhaps on our way we shall extract from them a modest philosophy of life.

I

IN fact, certain “Letters” of The Borough and almost all the Tales are variations on a single theme—the question of happiness. Not that Crabbe, as a rule, troubles his head about the means of obtaining it or about the obstacles which, in our pursuit of it, intervene between us and the object of our hopes: ambition or love, enamoured of an idle fancy and starting on some wild adventure, leaves our realist far behind. Faithful to his favourite method, which is the study of progressive corruption, he at once places his personages in a condition of comparative but unstable felicity, whence a combination of causes, coolly and minutely analysed, will plunge them into hopeless misery. These causes are our evil passions, which the poet knows so well in all the “shapes they take,” in the “strange waste of life and joy they make.”¹ They are, not the impulses, but the maladies of the mind, those corroding ailments which, attacking the heart, dry up the source of generous feeling and blight the flower of life.

Here is a pair of lovers,² belonging to the middle class: his name is Rupert, and he works all day in his father’s office; she is called Dinah, and acts as companion to a wealthy aunt, who has promised to leave the niece her money. Their occupations are monotonous, and they have grown weary with long waiting: Rupert has repeatedly begged the “widow” to consent to their union, but always in vain:

… She groan’d, and cough’d, and cried,

Talk’d of departing, and again her breath

Drew hard, and cough’d, and talk’d again of death:

“Here you may live, my Dinah! here the boy

And you together my estate enjoy.”

They had to yield to her objections, to give up talking of marriage, to content themselves with a short evening walk which made up for their troubles, and thus they reached “their thirtieth year,” with the uneasy hope of a still distant happiness.

Impatience is often a bad counsellor: in his thirst for wealth Rupert has accepted an apparently advantageous opening in the colonies. The lovers have parted, “with a gloomy view,” and no consolation but their tried fidelity. Letters have been exchanged, from which it appears that after a crisis of despair Rupert has found kind and probably true friends in his new home. And the years glide by, without bringing to either the longed-for opportunity: Rupert has no idea of returning; the aunt persists in remaining alive, and is astonished to hear Dinah continually sighing, when she ought to be “so happy” in the contemplation of her future treasures:

To vary pleasures, from the lady’s chest

Were drawn the pearly string and tabby vest;

Beads, jewels, laces, all their value shown,

With the kind notice—“They will be your own.”

At length Dinah was led to covet what she so often saw and handled; insensibly cupidity crept into her heart and dislodged the passion of love:

Now the grave niece partook the widow’s cares,

Look’d to the great, and ruled the small affairs;

Saw clean’d the plate, arranged the china-show,

And felt her passion for a shilling grow.

Her letters to Rupert became much shorter and less affectionate; she signed them “Your friend, Dinah,” and often alleged “the widow’s cough” as an excuse for writing only a few lines. When at last her aunt died, the joy of her youth was all forgotten. Without devoting a thought to Rupert, she took possession of her long-expected fortune: “her stocks, her bonds, and her buildings” were all cares which she had no intention of sharing:

Month after month was passed, and all were spent

In quiet comfort, and in rich content;

Miseries there were, and woes the world around,

But these had not her pleasant dwelling found;

She knew that mothers grieved, and widows wept,

And she was sorry, said her prayers, and slept:

Thus passed the seasons, and to Dinah’s board

Gave what the seasons to the rich afford.…

A love of splendour now with avarice strove,

And oft appeared to be the stronger love.…

In small but splendid room she loved to see

That all was placed in view and harmony.…

Around the room an Indian paper blazed,

With lively tint and figures boldly raised;

Silky and soft upon the floor below,

Th’ elastic carpet rose with crimson glow.…

Within a costly case of varnish’d wood,

In level rows, her polish’d volumes stood.

On her table was a silver lamp, “from Grecian pattern wrought”:

Above her head, all gorgeous to behold,

A timepiece stood on feet of burnish’d gold;

A stag’s-head crest adorn’d the pictured case,

Through the pure crystal shone the enamel’d face.

In the society of two intimate friends, admitted into this elegant boudoir, Dinah delights in discussing her neighbours, and bewails the misdeeds of the rising generation:

How tender damsels sail’d in tilted boats,

And laugh’d with wicked men in scarlet coats.

Evidently Dinah, at her age, would not indulge in such imprudent conduct: she is wedded to piety and selfishness. Her love has died out and her heart grown hard.

When, years afterwards, Rupert returns, as poor as he started, when, with “tawny cheek and pitted face,” he encounters the disdain of the “tall starch” maid-servant, and appears unexpectedly before his old sweetheart, he is received with a calculated coolness, a hypocritical austerity which contrasts strangely with his ingenuous hope and his sailor-like bluffness. What does his poverty matter? he says; “’tis mine to share thy comforts and the glory thine.” But a cruel disappointment is in store for him:

… “Heavens,” returned the maid,

“This talk to one so wither’d and decay’d ?

No! all my care is now to fit my mind

For other spousal, and to die resigned.”

“What spousal mean’st thou ?” rejoins the lover, half angry and half in doubt:

“… Thou art Rupert’s spouse;

That chance is mine to take, and thine to give:

But trifling this, if we together live:

Can I believe, that after all the past,

Our vows, our loves, thou wilt be false at last? …

Nay, speak at once; and Dinah, let me know,

Mean’st thou to take me, now I’m wrecked, in tow ?

Be fair; nor longer keep me in the dark;

Am I forsaken for a trimmer spark ?

Heaven’s spouse thou art not; nor can I believe

That God accepts her who will man deceive:

True, I am shatter’d, I have service seen,

And service done, and have in trouble been;

My cheek (it shames me not) has lost its red,

And the brown buff is o’er my features spread:

Perchance my speech is rude, for I among

Th’ untamed have been, in t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• FIRST PART YOUTH AND EARLY POEMS (1754—1781)
• SECOND PART THE CHAPLAIN AND POET OF COUNTRY LIFE (1782—1785)
• THIRD PART THE CLERGYMAN AND HIS PARISH REGISTER (1786—1807)
• FOURTH PART CRABBE’S REALISM
• FIFTH PART CRABBE AS WRITER OF TALES AND MORALIST
• CONCLUSION
• APPENDICES
• INDEX