best of these good things is the regard and friendship of those deservedly esteemed for their worth or their talents. I believe many dilettanti authors do cocker themselves up into a great jealousy of any thing that interferes with what they are pleased to call their fame: but I should as soon think of nursing one of my own fingers into a whitlow for my private amusement, as encouraging such a feeling.'

It was not until the year 1817, after the rising of the second morn on the mid-noon of his former fame, that Mr. Crabbe returned to the society of London, with which, more than thirty years before, he had been familiar in the persons of those, whose names will not perish so long as English history endures and it is difficult to imagine what must have been his feelings, on comparing the present literary generation with his recollections of the past. He received a warm and cordial welcome in the highest intellectual and fashionable circles; Campbell, Rogers, and Moore did homage to the living patriarch of English poetry; and there were very few persons of talent and distinction, to whom he was not personally known. But these social enjoyments, however gratifying, do not seem to have elated him; it is an interesting trait in his character, that the attentions which were lavished upon him were unknown to his family, until after his death. On his return from London, he pursued his usual occupations, as if they had undergone no interruption. This volume contains several letters, written by gentlemen of high literary fame, in which the writers have embodied their recollections of him at this period. On one occasion, at the urgent invitation of Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Crabbe visited him at Edinburgh. The reader will be interested in the following extracts of a letter addressed by Mr. Lockhart to his biographer, in which several circumstances, relating to this visit, are detailed.

'London, December 26, 1833. 'I am sorry to tell you that Sir Walter Scott kept no diary during the time of your father's visit to Scotland, otherwise it would have given me pleasure to make extracts for the use of your memoirs. For myself, although it is true that, in consequence of Sir Walter's being constantly consulted about the details of every procession and festival of that busy fortnight, the pleasing task of shewing to Mr. Crabbe the usual lions of Edinburgh fell principally to my share, I regret to say that my memory does not supply me with many traces of his conversation. The gen

eral impression, however, that he left on my mind was strong, and I think, indelible; while all the mummeries and carousals of an interval, in which Edinburgh looked very unlike herself, have faded into a vague and dreamlike indistinctness, the image of your father, then first seen, but long before admired and revered in his works, remains as fresh as if the years that have now passed were but so many days. His noble forehead, his bright beaming eye, without any thing of old age about it,— though he was then, I presume, above seventy,-his sweet and, I would say, innocent smile, and the calm mellow tones of his voice, are all reproduced the moment I open any page of his poetry; and how much better have I understood and enjoyed his poetry, since I was able thus to connect it with the living presence of the man!

'The literary persons, in company with whom I saw him the most frequently, were Sir Walter and Henry Mackenzie; and between two such thorough men of the world as they were, perhaps his apparent simplicity of look and manners struck me more than it might have done under different circumstances; but all three harmonized admirably together,-Mr. Crabbe's avowed ignorance about Gaels, and clans, and tartans, and every thing that was at that moment uppermost in Sir Walter's thoughts, furnishing him with a welcome apology for dilating on such topics with enthusiastic minuteness,-while your father's countenance spoke the quiet delight he felt in opening his imagination to what was really new; and the venerable "Man of Feeling," though a fiery Highlander himself at bottom, had the satisfaction of lying by and listening until some opportunity offered of hooking in, between the links, perhaps, of some grand chain of poetical imagery, some small comic or sarcastic trait, which Sir Walter caught up, played with, and, with that art so peculiarly his own, forced into the service of the very impression it seemed meant to disturb. One evening, at Mr. Mackenzie's own house, I particularly remember among the noctes coenaeque Deum.

Mr. Crabbe had, I remember, read very little about Scotland before that excursion. It appears to me that he confounded the Inchcolm of the Frith of Forth with the Icolmkill of the Hebrides but John Kemble, I have heard, did the same. I really believe he had never known until then, that a language, radically distinct from the English, was still actually spoken within the island. And this recalls a scene of high merriment which occurred the morning after his arrival. When he came down into the breakfast parlor, Sir Walter had not yet appeared there: and Mr. Crabbe had before him two or three portly personages, all in the full Highland garb. These gentlemen, arrayed in a costume so novel, were talking in a language which he did not

understand; so he never doubted that they were foreigners. The Celts, on their part, conceived Mr. Crabbe, dressed as he was in rather an old fashioned style of clerical propriety, with buckles in his shoes, for instance, to be some learned abbé, who had come on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Waverley; and the result was, that when, a little afterwards, Sir Walter and his family entered the room, they found your father and these worthy lairds hammering away, with pain and labor, to make themselves mutually understood, in most execrable French. Great was the relief, and potent the laughter, when the host interrupted the colloquy with his plain English "Good morning."

'All my friends, who had formed acquaintance with Mr. Crabbe on this occasion, appeared ever afterwards to remember him with the same feeling of affectionate respect. Sir Walter Scott and his family parted with him most reluctantly. He had been quite domesticated under their roof, and treated the young people very much as if they had been his own. His unsophisticated, simple and kind address put every body at ease with him: and indeed, one would have been too apt to forget what lurked beneath that good humored, unpretending aspect, but that every now and then he uttered some brief pithy remark, which showed how narrowly he had been scrutinizing into whatever might be said or done before him, and called us to remember, with some awe, that we were in the presence of the author of The Borough.'

I recollect that he used to have a lamp and writing materials placed by his bedside every night; and when Lady Scott told him she wondered the day was not enough for authorship, he answered, "Dear Lady, I should have lost many a good hit, had I not set down, at once, things that occurred to me in my dreams.'

'I could never help regretting very strongly that Mr. Crabbe did not find Sir Walter at Abbotsford, as he had expected to do. The fortnight he passed in Edinburgh was one scene of noise, glare, and bustle,-reviews, levées, banquets, and balls,—and no person could either see or hear so much of him, as might, under other circumstances, have been looked for. Sir Walter himself, I think, took only one walk with Mr. Crabbe: it was to the ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel, at the foot of Arthur's seat, which your father wished to see, as connected with part of the Heart of Mid-Lothian. I had the pleasure to accompany them on this occasion and it was the only one on which I heard your father enter into any details of his own personal history. He told us, that during many months, when he was toiling in early life in London, he hardly ever tasted butcher's meat, except on a Sunday, when he dined usually with a tradesman's family, and

thought their leg of mutton, baked in the pan, the perfection of luxury. The tears came into his eyes while be talked of Burke's kindness to him in his distress: and I remember he said, "The night after I delivered my letter at his house, I was in such a state of agitation, that I walked Westminster bridge backwards and forwards until daylight."

For many years before his death, Mr. Crabbe underwent severe tortures from the tic douloureux, and the rapid approaches of infirmity gave warning, in the beginning of 1831, that the period of his departure was at hand. Mine,' says he, 'is an old man's natural infirmity, and that same old man creeps upon me more and more.' Early in February of that year, he died, after a few days of great suffering. The closing scene was marked by the same religious hope, which had shed a beautiful lustre over his useful and protracted life. He retained to the last, in the intervals of pain, that calmness and serenity, which viewed without terror the event he felt to be approaching; and he exhibited throughout that interest in others, which had bound many hearts to his. The testimonies of respect, that were freely paid to his memory by the people of his neighborhood, were of that character, which nothing but the loss of a good man would call forth, and nothing but affectionate veneration would bestow.

We ought not to omit to notice the manner, in which the life of Mr. Crabbe has been recorded by his son. He formed the plan of preparing a biography, some time previous to his father's death, and has not thought it expedient to alter that portion of it which was written in his lifetime. We think this a judicious resolution; this portion of the work is undoubtedly more animated and attractive to the reader, than it would have been had it been written in the immediate contemplation of the loss. There is little reason to fear, that the son has omitted any thing particularly worthy of remembrance; while he has certainly collected much, that would not easily have been accessible to others. On the whole, it will be regarded as a just and gratifying tribute to a man of superior genius and virtue, whose moral qualities command our veneration, while his poetical abilities will ensure him a high and permanent rank among the poets of his country.

ART. VII.-Helen.

Helen: a Tale by MARIA EDgeworth. In two volumes. Philadelphia. 1834.

We know not when we have been more delighted, either as reviewers or as men, with any occurrence in the literary world, than with the opportunity of giving another welcome to Miss Edgeworth, the friend of our earlier years. And yet we must confess that our pleasure was mingled with many fears; for it was possible, that the recollection of the interest her writings used to inspire, might be stronger than the reality; there was a chance too, that during her long silence she might have lost something of her power, or that the public taste, so long used to the excitement of Scott's romances, might be less disposed than formerly to relish that quiet and unassuming excellence, which distinguishes Miss Edgeworth's writings. But whatever sentiments prevailed in our minds,-whether hopes or fears,we believe that all intelligent readers will agree with us in the acknowledgment, that the fears were uncalled for, and the hopes have been exceeded. We remember her as the morning star, whose radiance was lost for a time in the excessive brightness of the rising sun; now we see her reappearing more beautiful than ever as the planet of evening, after that sun has left the sky.

Works of this description are constantly exerting an immense power upon those who read them; and what numbers that phrase embraces in this reading age, when all who read anything are familiar with Miss Edgeworth and Scott! No one is on his guard against injurious impressions; when any one takes them up, he surrenders his mind to the excitement, and floats along like the drifting vessel, which takes no note of its bearings. He may be carried far aside from the right way, without the least suspicion that all is not well, and should he be a young reader, even if he perceive that injury has been done to his moral feelings, he may not have energy to repair it. The moral character of Scott's works is uniformly good, and that it is so, is indeed a blessing to the world. But another set of writers, such as the author of Vivian Grey, have sprung up since his decline, and have exerted a contrary influence, to