d so immaculate. The comparison thus suggested is not as felicitous
as in many of Crabbe's citations. Had _In_ _Memoriam_ been then
written, a more exact parallel might have been found in Tennyson's
warning to the young enthusiast:

"See thou, that countest reason ripe
In holding by the law within,
Thou fail not in a world of sin,
And ev'n for want of such a type."

The story is for the most part admirably told. The unhappy man, reduced
to idiocy of a harmless kind, and the common playmate of the village
children, is encountered now and then by the once loved maid, who might
have made him happy:

"Kindly she chides his boyish flights, while he
Will for a moment fix'd and pensive be;
And as she trembling speaks, his lively eyes
Explore her looks; he listens to her sighs;
Charm'd by her voice, th' harmonious sounds invade
His clouded mind, and for a time persuade:
Like a pleased infant, who has newly caught
From the maternal glance a gleam of thought,
He stands enrapt, the half-known voice to hear,
And starts, half conscious, at the falling tear.

Rarely from town, nor then unwatch'd, he goes,
In darker mood, as if to hide his woes;
Returning soon, he with impatience seeks
His youthful friends, and shouts, and sings, and speaks;
Speaks a wild speech with action all as wild--
The children's leader, and himself a child;
He spins their top, or at their bidding bends
His back, while o'er it leap his laughing friends;
Simple and weak, he acts the boy once more,
And heedless children call him _Silly Shore_."

In striking contrast to the prevailing tone of the other Tales is the
charming story, conceived in a vein of purest comedy, called _The Frank
Courtship_. This Tale alone should be a decisive answer to those who
have doubted Crabbe's possession of the gift of humour, and on this
occasion he has refrained from letting one dark shadow fall across his
picture. It tells of one Jonas Kindred, a wealthy puritanic Dissenter of
narrowest creed and masterful temper. He has an only daughter, the pride
of her parents, and brought up by them in the strictest tenets of the
sect. Her father has a widowed and childless sister, with a comfortable
fortune, living in some distant town; and in pity of her solitary
condition he allows his naturally vivacious daughter to spend the
greater part of the year with her aunt. The aunt does not share the
prejudices of her brother's househ