w, when in his later years Crabbe
was introduced to wits and men of the world, he generally held his
peace, or, at most, let fall some bit of dry quiet humour. At rare
intervals he remembers that a poet ought to indulge in a figure of
speech, and laboriously compounds a simile which appears in his poetry
like a bit of gold lace on a farmer's homespun coat. He confessed as
much in answer to a shrewd criticism of Jeffrey's, saying that he
generally thought of such illustrations and inserted them after he had
finished his tale. Here is one of these deliberately-concocted
ornaments, intended to explain the remark that the difference between
the character of two brothers came out when they were living together
quietly:--

As various colours in a painted ball,
While it has rest are seen distinctly all;
Till, whirl'd around by some exterior force,
They all are blended in the rapid course;
So in repose and not by passion swayed
We saw the difference by their habits made;
But, tried by strong emotions, they became
Filled with one love, and were in heart the same.

The conceit is ingenious enough in one sense, but painfully ingenious.
It requires some thought to catch the likeness suggested, and then it
turns out to be purely superficial. The resemblance of such a writer to
Pope obviously does not go deep. Crabbe imitates Pope because everybody
imitated him at that day. He adopted Pope's metre because it had come to
be almost the only recognised means of poetical expression. He stuck to
it after his contemporaries had introduced new versification, partly
because he was old-fashioned to the backbone and partly because he had
none of those lofty inspirations which naturally generate new forms of
melody. He seldom trusts himself to be lyrical, and when he does his
versification is nearly as monotonous as it is in his narrative poetry.
We must not expect to soar with Crabbe into any of the loftier regions;
to see the world 'apparelled in celestial light,' or to descry

Such forms as glitter in the muses' ray,
With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun.

We shall find no vehement outbursts of passion, breaking loose from the
fetters of sacred convention. Crabbe is perfectly content with the
British Constitution, with the Thirty-nine Articles, and all
respectabilities in Church and State, and therefore he is quite content
also with the good old jogtrot of the recognised metres; his language,