"E'en in the pangs of each domestic grief, "Or health or vigorous hope affords relief; "And every wound the tortured bosom feels, "Or virtue bears, or some preserver heals; "Some generous friend, of ample power possess'd; "Some feeling heart, that bleeds for the distress'd; "Some breast that glows with virtues all divine; "Some noble RUTLAND (1), misery's friend and thine. inveni nisi in angulis et libellis.' I too have found repose where he did, in books. Wherever these books of mine may be dispersed, there is not one among them that will ever be more comfortably lodged, or more highly prized by its possessor; and generations may pass away before some of them will again find a reader. It is well that we do not moralise too much upon such subjects For foresight is a melancholy gift, Which bares the bald, and speeds the all-too-swift.' But the dispersion of a library, whether in retrospect or in anticipation, always to me a melancholy thing. How many such dispersions must have taken place to have made it possible that these books should thus be brought together here among the Cumberland mountains! Not a few of these volumes have been cast up from the wreck of the family or convent libraries during the late revolution...... I am sorry when I see the name of a former owner obliterated in a book, or the plate of his arms defaced. Poor memorials though they be, yet they are something saved for a while from oblivion; and I should be almost as unwilling to destroy them, as to efface the Hic jacet of a tombstone. There may be sometimes a pleasure in re cognising them, sometimes a salutary sadness."- -SOUTHEY.] (1) [Charles fourth Duke of Rutland, died in 1787. See antè, Vol. I. p. 112. The following eulogium on his Grace was delivered by Bishop Watson, in the House of Peers: -"The dead, my lords, listen not to the commendation of the living; or, greatly as I loved him, I would not now have praised him. The world was not aware of half his ability-was not conscious of half his worth. I had long and intimate experience of them both. His judgment in the conduct of public affairs was, I verily believe, equalled by few men of his age; his probity and disinterestedness were exceeded by none. All the letters which I received from him respecting the public state of Ireland (and they were not a few) were written with profound good sense: they all breathe the same liberal spirit, have all the same common "Nor say, the Muse's song, the Poet's pen, "Merit the scorn they meet from little men. "With cautious freedom if the numbers flow, "Not wildly high, nor pitifully low; "If vice alone their honest aims oppose, "Why so ashamed their friends, so loud their foes? "Happy for men in every age and clime, "If all the sons of vision dealt in rhyme. "Go on, then, Son of Vision! still pursue "Thy airy dreams; the world is dreaming too "Ambition's lofty views, the pomp of state, "The pride of wealth, the splendour of the great, 66 Stripp'd of their mask, their cares and troubles known, "Are visions far less happy than thy own: "While serious souls are by their fears undone, tendency: - not that of aggrandising Great Britain by the ruin of Ireland --not that of benefiting Ireland at the expence of Great Britain - but that of promoting the united interests of both countries, as essential parts of the common empire. In private life, I know that he had a strong sense of religion: he showed it in imitating his illustrious father in one of its most characteristic parts, that of being alive to everv impulse of compas sion. His family, his friends, his dependants, all his connections, can witness for me the warmth and sincerity of his personal attachments. Ever since he was admitted as a pupil under me at Cambridge, I have oved him with the affection of a brother. His memory, I trust, will oe long revered by the people of this country-long held dear by the people of Ireland and by myself I know it will be held most dear as long as I live." From the introduction of the Duke of Rutland's name in "The Library," it may be inferred, that Mr. Burke had presented Mr. Crabbe to his Grace at least a year before his appointment as Domestic Chaplain at Belvoir.] "And call them worlds! and bid the greatest show "More radiant colours in their worlds below: "Then, as they break, the slaves of care reprove, "And tell them, Such are all the toys they love." (') (1) [On the appearance of the Library in 1781, it was pronounced by the Monthly Review to be "the production of no common pen:" and the Critical Review said "A vein of good sense and philosophic reflection runs through this little performance, which distinguishes it from most modern poems. The rhymes are correct, and the versification smooth and harmonious. It is observable that the author, in his account of all the numerous volumes in every science, has never characterised or entered into the merits of any particular writer, though he had so fair an opportunity from the nature of his subject." The reader of Mr. Crabbe's Life can be at no loss to account for his abstinence from such details as are here alluded to. The author, when he wrote this poem, had probably never seen any considerable collection of books, except in his melancholy visits to the shops of booksellers in London in 1780-81.] |