Crabbe
krab, George (1754-1832), an English poet. He was born at Aldborough, Suffolk. He was educated as a surgeon, but, failing to get a living in his native village, he went up to London. He was befriended by Edmund Burke, and finally turned clergyman. His later years were spent peacefully in the discharge of the duties of his parish at Trowbridge, Wiltshire. He was universally esteemed. His chief writings are The Village, The Parish Register, The Borough, and Tales of the Hall. Crabbe uses the two-rhymed couplet in the greater number of his poems. His style lacks polish and musical rhythm. It is, however, direct and unaffected, and not without dramatic qualities. He describes simple village life with truth and vigor, but shows the trials of the poor in harsher light than does Goldsmith in the Deserted Village.
QUOTATIONS.
To you, the smoothest song is smooth in vain;
O'ercome by labour, and bowed down by time,
Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme?
Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,
By winding myrtles round your ruin'd shed?
Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower,
Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?
--The Village.
Minds are not ever craving for their food.
That right was right, and there he would abide.
He tried the luxury of doing good.
SAID OF CRABBE.
Nature's sternest painter, yet the best.--Byron.
An admirable foil to the insincerity of the fashionable pastoral.--Courthope.