_The Tales of the
Hall_, referring chiefly to the higher classes of society, are more
artificial, and not so good. His pen was most at home in describing
smugglers, gipsies, and humble villagers, and in delineating poverty and
wretchedness; and thus opening to the rich and titled, doors through which
they might exercise their philanthropy and munificence. In this way Crabbe
was a reformer, and did great good; although his scenes are sometimes
revolting, and his pathos too exacting. As a painter of nature, he is true
and felicitous; especially in marine and coast views, where he is a
pre-Raphaelite in his minuteness. Byron called him "Nature's sternest
painter, but the best." He does not seem to write for effect, and he is
without pretension; so that the critics were quite at fault; for what they
mainly attack is not the poet's work so much as the consideration whether
his works come up to his manifesto. Crabbe died in 1832, on the 3d of
February, being one of the famous dead of that fatal year.
Crabbe's poems mark his age.
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