circumstances.... Indeed I do not know that I could paint merely from my
own fancy, and there is no cause why I should. Is there not diversity
enough in society?"




CHAPTER VIII


_TALES_

(1812)

Crabbe's new volume--"Tales. By the Rev. George Crabbe, LL.B."--was
published by Mr. Hatchard of Piccadilly in the summer of 1812. It
received a warm welcome from the poet's admirers, and was reviewed, most
appreciatively, by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh_ for November. The _Tales_
were twenty-one in number, and to each was prefixed a series, often four
or five, of quotations from Shakespeare, illustrating the incidents in
the Tales, or the character there depicted. Crabbe's knowledge of
Shakespeare must have been in those days, when concordances were not,
very remarkable, for he quotes by no means always from the best known
plays, and he was not a frequenter of the theatre. Crabbe had of late
studied human nature in books as well as in life.

As already remarked, the Tales are often built upon events in his own
family, or else occurring within their knowledge. The second in order of
publication, _The Parting Hour_, arose out of an incident in the life of
the poet's own brother, which is thus related in the notes to the