the
Chair that the Muses did not go quite far enough in justifying the
convention, or the life-lie, by which poetry, as a form, existed. They
could easily have proved that much of the mystical charm which
differences poetry from prose resides in its license, its syntactical
acrobatics, its affectations of diction, its elisions, its rhymes. As a
man inverting his head and looking at the landscape between his legs
gets an entirely new effect on the familiar prospect, so literature
forsaking the wonted grammatical attitudes really achieves something
richly strange by the novel and surprising postures permissible in
verse. The phrases, the lines, the stanzas which the ear keeps lingering
in its porches, loath to let them depart, are usually full of these
licenses. They have a witchery which could be as little proved as
denied; and when any poet proposes to forego them, and adhere rigidly to
the law of prose in his rhythm, he practises a loyalty which is a sort
of treason to his calling and will go far toward undoing him.

While the ladies of that club were talking, some such thoughts as these
were in our mind, suggested by summer-long reading of a dear, delightful
poet, altogether neglected in these days, who deserves to be known again
wherever reality is prized or simplicity is loved. It is proof, indeed,
how shallow was all the debate about realism and romanticism that the
poetic tales of George Crabbe were never once alleged in witness of the
charm which truth to condition and character has, in whatever form. But
once, long before that ineffectual clamor arose, he was valued as he
should be still. Edmund Burke was the first to understand his purpose
and appreciate his work. He helped the poet not only with praises but
with pounds till he could get upon his feet. He introduced Crabbe's
verse to his great friends, to Doctor Johnson, who perceived at once
that he would go far; to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who felt the
brother-artist in him; to the Lord Chancellor Thurlow, whose oaths were
harder than his heart toward the fearlessy fearful young singer. The
sympathy and admiration of the highest and the best followed him through
his long life to his death. The great Mr. Fox loved him and his rhyme,
and wished his tales to be read to him on the bed he never left alive.
Earl Grey, Lord Holland, and the brilliant Canning wrote him letters of
cordial acclaim; Walter Scott, the generous, the magnanimous, hailed him
brother, and would