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 always have his books by him; none of his poems appeared without the warmest welcome, the most discriminating and applausive criticism from Jeffrey, the first critic of his long day.
Crabbe had not only this exquisitely intelligent hearing, but he was accepted on his own terms, as a poet who saw so much beauty in simple and common life that he could not help painting it. He painted it in pieces of matchless fidelity to the fact, with nothing of flattery, but everything of charm in the likeness. His work is the enduring witness of persons, circumstances, customs, experiences utterly passed from the actual world, but recognizably true with every sincere reader. These tales of village life in England a hundred years ago are of an absolute directness and frankness. They blink nothing of the sordid, the mean, the vicious, the wicked in that life, from which they rarely rise in some glimpse of the state of the neighboring gentry, and yet they abound in beauty that consoles and encourages. They are full of keen analysis, sly wit, kindly humor, and of a satire too conscientious to bear the name; of pathos, of compassion, of reverence, while in unaffected singleness of ideal they are unsurpassed.