guished of our poet's surviving friends-Mr. Rogers; and we understand that he is one of those to whose opinion of its contents the editor refers in his modest advertisement :

'Although, in a letter written shortly before his death, Mr. Crabbe mentioned the following pieces as fully prepared for the press; and to withhold from the public what he had thus described could not have been consistent with filial reverence; yet his executors must confess that, when they saw the first pages of his MS. reduced to type, they became very sensible that, had he himself lived to edit these compositions, he would have considered it necessary to bestow on them a good deal more of revision and correction, before finally submitting them to the eye of the world. They perceived that his language had not always effected the complete development of his ideas-that images were here and there left imperfect-nay, trains of reflection rather hinted than expressed; and that, in many places, thoughts in themselves valuable could not have failed to derive much additional weight and point from the last touches of his own pen.

'Under such circumstances, it was a very great relief to their minds to learn, that several persons of the highest eminence in literature had read these poetical remains before any part of them was committed to the printer; and that the verdict of such judges was, on the whole, more favourable than they themselves had begun to anticipate; that, in the opinion of those whose esteem had formed the highest honour of their father's life, his fame would not be tarnished by their compliance with the terms of his literary bequest;-that, though not so uniformly polished as some of his previous performances, these Posthumous Essays would still be found to preserve, in the main, the same characteristics on which his reputation had been established; much of the same quiet humour and keen observation; the same brief and vivid description; the same unobtrusive pathos; the same prevailing reverence for moral truth, and rational religion; and, in a word, not a few "things which the world would not willingly let die."'—pp. v. vi.

From the judgment of the friendly critics here alluded to we do not apprehend there will be much dissent. The posthumous volume offers, indeed, no tale entitled to be talked of in the same breath with the highest efforts of Crabbe's genius-no 'Peter. Grimes'-no 'Ellen Orford'-no Sir Owen Dale'-no 'Patron' -no Lady Barbara;' but it contains, nevertheless, a series of stories, scarcely one of which any lover of the man and the poet would wish to have been suppressed: every one of them presenting us with pithy couplets, which will be treasured up and remembered while the English language lasts; and some of them, notwithstanding what the editor candidly says as to the general want of the lima labor, displaying not only his skill as an analyst of character, but in a strong light also his peculiar mastery of versification. The example of Lord Byron's Corsair' and 'Lara' had not,

we

we suspect, been lost upon him. In some of these pieces he has a freedom and breadth of execution which we doubt if he ever before equalled in the metre to which he commonly adheredinsomuch, that in place of a Pope in worsted stockings' (as James Smith has called him), we seem now and then to be more reminded of a Dryden in a one-horse chaise.

One of the most amusing of these stories is the first of them, entitled Silford Hall, or the Happy Day.' It gives us the summer's-day adventures of an enthusiastic, dreaming boy, the son of a village schoolmaster, sent by his parent to receive payment of a small account' at a nobleman's seat six miles off-kindly treated by the housekeeper-admitted for the first time to see the interior of a great mansion-and opening his imagination to those dreams of the felicity of grandeur which we suppose every lad of the same class has formed acquaintance with on some similar occasion. The editor intimates that this little narrative is in fact that of a day in the poet's own early life-that on which, being then our new 'prentice,' he first walked across the country with a packet of medicines to Cheveley Hall, a seat of the Rutland family, in whose nobler palace of Belvoir he was, in after years, domesticated. His picture of the schoolmaster is very good :

Peter, the eldest son of this hero, is now in his fifteenth year

"A king his father, he a prince has rule,

The first of subjects, viceroy of the school'—

but at leisure hours showed little affection for the contents of old Nathaniel's loftier bookshelf

'Books of high mark, the mind's more solid food,

Which some might think the owner understood.'

In place of Fluxions, sections, algebraic lore,' Peter turned, with unwearied zest, to his mother's little collection

'And

Of Dr. Cooke, and other learned men,
In numbers, sixpence each ;—by these
was seen,

And highly prized, the Monthly Maga-
zine ;-

Gave such impressions as such minds re-
ceive;

And with his moral and religious views,
Wove the wild fancies of an Infant-Muse,
Inspiring thoughts that he could not ex-
press,

Obscure sublime! his secret happiness.'
pp. 8-11.

Young genius was never better pourtrayed than in this last couplet.

The maternal preparations for Peter's great expedition are described in terms that call to our remembrance our friend Moses Primrose on the morning of the spectacles :

• Nathaniel's self with joy the stripling
eyed,

And gave a shilling with a father's pride;
Rules of politeness, too, with pomp he

One hand a whip, and one a bridle held,
In case the pony falter'd or rebell'd.

The village boys beheld him as he
pass'd,

But he was meek, nor let his pride ap
And looks of envy on the hero cast;

pear,

Nay, truth to speak, he felt a sense of fear,
Lest the rude beast, unmindful of the rein,
Should take a fancy to turn back again.'
p. 13.

We pass Peter's ride-his business with the bailiff-the courteous address of the portly housekeeper

A learned

'A learned lady she, who knew the names

Of all the pictures in the golden frames.'

Let us suppose him well luncheoned, and on his travels through the never-ending galleries of Silford Hall:

'Now could he look on that delightful 'Twas so Narcissus saw the boy advance
place,
In the dear fount, and met th' admiring
glance

The glorious dwelling of a princely race;
His vast delight was mix'd with equal

So loved-But no! our happier boy admired

Not the slim form, but what the form attired

The riband, shirt, and frill, all pure and clean,

The white-ribb'd stockings, and the coat of green.

"Then to the Chapel moved the friendly
pair,

And well for Peter that his guide was there!
Dim, silent, solemn was the scene-he felt
The cedar's power, that so unearthly smelt;
And then the stain'd, dark, narrow win-
dows threw

Strange, partial beams on pulpit, desk,
and pew:

Upon the altar, glorious to behold,
Stood a vast pair of candlesticks, in gold!
With candles tall, and large, and firm,
and white,

Such as the halls of giant-kings would
light.

'There was an organ, too, but now un

Passing he look'd, and looking, grieved" to pass

Indeed it is, or as a church is used," Was the reply; and Peter deeply mused.' Pp. 16-18.

From the fair figure smiling in the glass.
But the Picture Gallery is the wonder of wonders. We must
omit all the Guidos, Claudes, Tenierses, and Gerard Dows.
The Scripture Pieces caused a serious

awe,

He seem'd to think that something wrong

was done,

And he with reverence look'd on all he When crimes were shown he blush'd to

pp. 18, 19. Peter's mother, who had visited Silford Hall in her own earlier day, had particularly cautioned the boy not to be startled with the

But, nevertheless, Peter was marvellously awe-stricken when he found himself in such company. Madam Johnson inquires why his looks were so very earnest and rueful? He answers

“All in an instant, as they were employ'd, « But 'tis so awful, and this place so "Was life in every living man destroy'd: still."

One glimpse of the billiard-room, and we dismiss the lions of Silford Hall: