him
fresh offers of criticism and advice. And now the great statesman had
passed beyond reach of Crabbe's gratitude. He had died in the autumn of
1806, at the Duke of Devonshire's, at Chiswick. His last months wore of
great suffering, and the tedium of his latter days was relieved by being
read aloud to--the Latin poets taking their turn with Crabbe's pathetic
stories of humble life. In the same preface, Crabbe further expresses
similar obligations to his friend, Richard Turner of Yarmouth. The
result of this double criticism is the more discernible when we compare
_The Parish Register_ with, its successor, _The Borough_, in the
composition of which Crabbe admits, in the preface to that poem, that he
had trusted more entirely to his own judgment.

In _The Parish Register_, Crabbe returns to the theme which he had
treated twenty years before in _The Village,_ but on a larger and more
elaborate scale. The scheme is simple and not ineffective. A village
clergyman is the narrator, and with his registers of baptisms,
marriages, and burials open before him, looks through the various
entries for the year just completed. As name after name recalls
interesting particulars of character and incident in their history, he
relates them as if to an imaginary friend at his side. The precedent of
_The Deserted Village_ is still obviously near to the writer's mind, and
he is alternately attracted and repelled by Goldsmith's ideals. For
instance, the poem opens with an introduction of some length in which
the general aspects of village life are described. Crabbe begins by
repudiating any idea of such life as had been described by his
predecessor:--

"Is there a place, save one the poet sees,
A land of love, of liberty, and ease;
Where labour wearies not, nor cares suppress
Th' eternal flow of rustic happiness:
Where no proud mansion frowns in awful state,
Or keeps the sunshine from the cottage-gate;
Where young and old, intent on pleasure, throng,
And half man's life is holiday and song?
Vain search for scenes like these! no view appears,
By sighs unruffled, or unstain'd by tears;
Since vice the world subdued and waters drown'd,
Auburn and Eden can no more be found."

And yet the poet at once proceeds to describe his village in much the
same tone, and with much of the same detail as Goldsmith had done:--

"Behold the Cot! where thrives th' industrious swain,
Source of his pride, his pleasure, and his ga