fluent and copious--as skilful in spreading a truism over a dozen
well-sounding lines--as any of his predecessors. There is little new in
the way of ideas. Crabbe had as yet no wide insight into books and
authors, and he was forced to deal largely in generalities. But he
showed that he had already some idea of style; and if, when he had so
little to say, he could say it with so much semblance of power, it was
certain that when he had observed and thought for himself he would go
further and make a deeper mark. The heroic couplet controlled him to the
end of his life, and there is no doubt that it was not merely timidity
that made him confine himself to the old beaten track. Crabbe's thoughts
ran very much in antithesis, and the couplet suited this tendency. But
it had its serious limitations. Southey's touching stanzas--

"My days among the dead are passed,"

though the ideas embodied are no more novel than Crabbe's, are worth
scores of such lines as these--

"With awe, around these silent walks I tread;
These are the lasting mansions of the dead:
'The dead!' methinks a thousand tongues reply;
'These are the tombs of such as cannot die!
Crowned with eternal fame, they sit sublime,
And laugh at all the little strife of Time'"




CHAPTER III