INTRODUCTION.

"TALES OF THE HALL," says the Poet's son and biographer, occupied his father during the years 1817, 1818, and were published by John Murray in the following year under the present title, which he suggested, instead of that of "Remembrances," which had been originally proposed.

The plan and nature of the work is thus described by the author himself in a letter written to his old friend, Mary Leadbetter, and dated October 30, 1817:

"I know not how to describe the new, and probably (most probably) the last work I shall publish. Though a village is the scene of meeting between my two principal characters, and gives occasion to other characters and relations in general, yet I no more describe the manners of village inhabitants. My people are of superior classes, though not the most elevated; and, with a few exceptions, are of educated and cultivated minds and habits. I do not know, on a general view, whether my tragic or lighter Tales, etc., are most in number. Of those equally well executed, the tragic will, I suppose, make the greater impression; but I know not that it requires more atten tion."

ances.

"The plan of the work," says Jeffrey, in a succinct, if not quite exact, epitome-" for it has more of plan and unity than any of Mr. Crabbe's former productions-is abundantly simple. Two brothers, both past middle age, meet together for the first time since their infancy, in the Hall of their native parish, which the elder and richer had purchased as a place of retirement for his declining age; and there tell each other their own history, and then that of their guests, neighbours, and acquaintThe senior is much the richer, and a bachelor-having been a little distasted with the sex by the unlucky result of a very extravagant passion. He is, moreover, rather too reserved, and somewhat Toryish, though with an excellent heart and a powerful understanding. The younger is very sensible also, but more open, social, and talkative; a happy husband and father, with a tendency to Whiggism, and some notion of reform, and a disposition to think well both of men and women. The visit lasts two or three weeks in autumn; and the Tales are told in the after-dinner têtes-à-têtes that take place in that time between the worthy brothers over their bottle.

"The married man, however, wearies at length for his wife and children; and his brother lets him go with more coldness than he had expected. He goes with him a stage on the way; and, inviting him to turn aside a little to look at a new purchase he had made of a sweet farm with a neat mansion, he finds his wife and children comfortably settled there, and all ready to receive them; and speedily discovers that he is, by his brother's bounty, the proprietor of a fair domain within a morning's ride of the Hall, where they may discuss politics, and tell tales any afternoon they may think proper."-Edinburgh Review, 1819.

The Scene has also changed with Drama and Dramatis Personæ no longer now the squalid purlieus of old, inhabited by paupers and ruffians, with the sea on one side, and as barren a heath on the other; in place of that, a village with its tidy homestead and well-to-do tenant, scattered about an ancient Hall, in a well

wooded, well-watered, well-cultivated country, within easy reach of a thriving country town, and

"West of the waves, and just beyond the sound,"

of that old familiar sea, which (with all its sad associations) the Poet never liked to leave far behind him.

When he wrote the letter above quoted (two years before the publication of his book) he knew not whether his tragic exceeded the lighter stories in quantity, though he supposed they would leave the deeper impression on the reader. In the completed work I find the tragic stories fewer in number, and, to my thinking, assuredly not more impressive than such as are composed of that mingled yarn of grave and gay of which the kind of life he treats of is, I suppose, generally made up "Nature's sternest Painter" may have mellowed with a prosperous old age, and from a comfortable grand-climacteric, liked to contemplate and represent a brighter aspect of humanity than his earlier life afforded him. Anyhow, he has here selected a subject whose character and circumstance require a lighter touch and shadow less dark than such as he formerly delineated.

Those who now tell their own as well as their neighbours' stories are much of the Poet's own age as well as condition of life, and look back (as he may have looked) with what Sir Walter Scott calls a kind of humorous retrospect over their own lives, cheerfully extending to others the same kindly indulgence which they solicit for themselves. The book, if I mistake not, deals rather with the follies than with the vices of men, with the comedy rather than the tragedy of life. Assuredly there