| The scouts had parted on their search, | |
| The castle gates were barred, | |
| Above the gloomy portal arch, | |
| Timing his footsteps to a march, | |
| The warden kept his guard, | |
| Low humming, as he passed along, | |
| Some ancient border gathering song.” |
How picturesque, yet how minute! Not even Wordsworth, devoted as he is to nature, and to visible as well as invisible truth, can compare with Scott in fidelity of description. Not even Crabbe, that least imaginative of poets, can compare with him for accuracy of touch and truth of colouring. Scott’s faculties being nicely balanced, never disturbed one another; we perceive this even more distinctly in his poetry than in his prose, perhaps because less excited while reading it.
I have said that Crabbe was the least imaginative of poets. He has no imagination in the commonly received sense of the term; there is nothing of creation in his works; nay, I dare affirm, in opposition to that refined critic, Sir James Mackintosh, that there was no touch of an idealizing tendency in his mind; yet he is a poet; he is so through his calm but deep and steady sympathy with all that is human; he is so by his distinguished power of observation; he is so by his graphic skill. No literature boasts an author more individual than Crabbe. He is unique. Moore described him well.
“Grand from the truth that reigns o’er all,
The unshrinking truth that lets her light
Through life’s low, dark, interior fall,
Opening the whole severely bright.
Yet softening, as she frowns along,
O’er scenes which angels weep to see,
Where truth herself half veils the wrong
In pity of the misery.”
I could never enter into the state of a mind which could sup-
