halting invariably, and for the most part clumsy enough, is sufficiently
differentiated from prose by the mould into which it is run, and he
never wants to kick over the traces with his more excitable
contemporaries.

The good old rule
Sufficeth him, the simple plan

that each verse should consist of ten syllables, with an occasional
Alexandrine to accommodate a refractory epithet, and should rhyme
peaceably with its neighbour.

From all which it may be too harshly inferred that Crabbe is merely a
writer in rhyming prose, and deserving of no attention from the more
enlightened adherents of a later school. The inference, I say, would be
hasty, for it is impossible to read Crabbe patiently without receiving a
very distinct and original impression. If some pedants of aesthetic
philosophy should declare that we ought not to be impressed because
Crabbe breaks all their rules, we can only reply they are mistaking
their trade. The true business of the critic is to discover from
observation what are the conditions under which a book appeals to our
sympathies, and, if he finds an apparent exception to his rules, to
admit that he has made an oversight, and not to condemn the facts which
persist in contradicting his theories. It may, indeed, be freely granted
that Crabbe has suffered seriously by his slovenly methods and his
insensibility to the more exquisite and ethereal forms of poetical
excellence. But however he may be classified, he possesses the essential
mark of genius, namely, that his pictures, however coarse the
workmanship, stamp themselves on our minds indelibly and
instantaneously. His pathos is here and there clumsy, but it goes
straight to the mark. His characteristic qualities were first distinctly
shown in the 'Village,' which was partly composed under Burke's eye, and
was more or less touched by Johnson. It was, indeed, a work after
Johnson's own heart, intended to be a pendant, or perhaps a corrective,
to Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village.' It is meant to give the bare blank
facts of rural life, stripped of all sentimental gloss. To read the two
is something like hearing a speech from an optimist landlord and then
listening to the comments of Mr. Arch. Goldsmith, indeed, was far too
exquisite an artist to indulge in mere conventionalities about
agricultural bliss. If his 'Auburn' is rather idealised, the most
prosaic of critics cannot object to the glow thrown by the memory of the
poet over