The Poetry of Crabbe

REVIEWS 265 selecting quotations and setting them so that they reflect on each other and illuminate with their blaze the dark grandeur of lohnson's inner self. Does the book really describe Johnson's achievement? No; but it does call attention to his stature in an unusual and interesting way. Professors Sledd and Kolb, the last of this group of Johnsonians, are concerned with lohnsoo's work--one work, the splendid Dictionary. (James H. Sledd and Gwin J. Kolb, Dr. Johnson's Dictionary: Essays in the Biography of a Book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press [Toronto: University of Toronto Press]. Pp. viii, 256. $5.00.) Mr. Sledd's and Mr. Kolb's essays can be taken as an example of how faithful scholarship, clearly and precisely expressed, can illustrate greatness. The Dictionary is one of the most pleasurable and fascinating of books: to look up, say, "candour" is to find oneself insensibly and deviously beguiled down the alphabet to "zebra": and these essays enhance it by settling its place in the lexicographical tradition and determining the circumstances and manner of its composition. One might ask whether the meticulous examination of the MS. of "A Short Scheme for compiling a new Dictionary of the English Language" is not too lengthy; but the other essays, on the lexicographical tradition, on Lord Chesterfield and Johnson, etc., are as enjoyable as they are informed: old heresies are scattered and truth restored. As the authors appear to know everything that there is to know about the Dictionary, one might also ask why Chancellor John E. W. Wallis's delightful essay Dr lohnson and his English Dictionary, 1946, is DOt mentioned. Surely such a worthy forerunner in admiration for the Dictionary deserves Mr. Sledd's and Mr. Kolb's kind word? All the books considered help to answer the original question referred to in this review: from whence is Johnson's greatness derived? To answer indirectly in Johnson's own words: "the mind can only repose on the stability of truth." DOUGLAS GRANT The Poetry of Crabbe When George Crabbe read Hazlitt's stupid and savage attack on him in The Spirit 01 the Times, he was understandably perturbed. "But my engraved seal," he remarked later, "dropped out of the socket and was lost and I perceived this vexed me much more than the 'spirit' of Mr. Hazlitt."·It is likely, then, that he would have been at least as charitable towards the latest criticism of his work, The Poetry of Crabbe, and its author, Lilian Haddakin. (Lilian Haddakin, The Poetry of Crabbe. London: Chatto & Windus Ltd. [Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Co. Ltd.]. 1955. Pp. 176. $2.65.) Certainly Mrs. Haddakin has meant well, but her errors, since they are much more insidious than Hazlitt's, may well do her subject more harm. She has set out to show, evidently to those who have not read much of Crabbe, "what kind of satisfaction is to be gained" from reading him, and 266 REVIEWS attempts to do so first by pointing out ''the distinctive qualities of his work." Should these qualities not prove distinctive, however, the danger exists that the general reader, concluding that Crabbe has nothing unique to offer, will decide not to exert himself further. Consequently one feels uneasy about such a major pronouncment as this: . . . the material objects which appear in Crabbe's images of actuality contribute not only to the accuracy of the image but also to its emotional and mora) comprehensiveness; [furthermore,] unless the individual passage is constantly seen in relation to the poem as a whole, it is impossible to discern either the tone of that passage or the gradation of tone effected in the complete poem. ... our response to the individual sketch is influenced by its relation to earlier sketches. This may be called articulation by means of ambience. Surely the choosing of details for their emotional cormotation as well as their contribution to descriptive accuracy is not unique; nor for Crabbe alone do we have to read each part of a poem in relation to the other parts. The second method by which Mrs. Haddakin seeks to entice the general reader into Crabbe is the revelation of what constitutes his "characteristic...