PREFACE.

The poems contained in this volume, which comprise the whole of the Tales and the first eleven of the Tales of the Hall, are without exception printed from the edition of 1823, the last of Crabbe’s works published in this country in his lifetime.

The Variants in the Tales are from the first edition (1812) and from the ‘Original MS.’ readings given as footnotes in the younger Crabbe’s edition of his father’s Life and Poems (1834). The Variants in the Tales of the Hall are from the first edition (1819); from the ‘Original MS.’ readings as above; from the Crabbe MSS. in the possession of the Cambridge University Press (which will be described in the Preface to Vol. III, where a much fuller use will be made of them), and from the MSS. in the valuable collection of Mrs Mackay of Trowbridge, most kindly lent by her for examination and use (to which the same remark applies). In the present volume will also be found certain Addenda to the Variants in Vol. I, from the ‘Original MS.’ readings printed by the younger Crabbe.

Among the Errata in this volume are included a considerable number of quotations from Shakespeare with wrong indications of acts or scenes, and occasionally even of the plays from which the passages are taken. A large proportion of the quotations are in themselves imperfect, or otherwise incorrect. Perhaps it is stretching a point to treat all these defects as oversights; sometimes Crabbe may have made intentional changes, and more frequently he may have been wilfully careless. No readings which he could have found in any current edition of Shakespeare have been altered.

In the preparation of the present volume, I have again enjoyed the advantage of the friendly aid and cooperation of Mr A. T. Bartholomew, to whom I am specially indebted for the compilation of the Variants. Our joint efforts have been occasionally defeated by the illegibility of passages in the Crabbe MSS. acquired by our University Press. It is hoped that the third and concluding volume of this edition, which will contain a considerable amount of previously unpublished verse, will appear in the course of the summer.

A. W. WARD.

Peterhouse Lodge, Cambridge. March 19th, 1906.

CONTENTS.

TALES PAGE

I. The Dumb Orators 13

II. The Parting Hour 27

III. The Gentleman Farmer 41

IV. Procrastination 56

V. The Patron 67

VI. The Frank Courtship 87

VII. The Widow’s Tale 101

VIII. The Mother 113

IX. Arabella 124

X. The Lover’s Journey 134

XI. Edward Shore 145

XII. ’Squire Thomas 159

XIII. Jesse and Colin 170

XIV. The Struggles of Conscience 185

XV. The ’Squire and the Priest 199

XVI. The Confidant 211

XVII. Resentment 228

XVIII. The Wager 242

XIX. The Convert 251

XX. The Brothers 264

XXI. The Learned Boy 276

TALES OF THE HALL

I. The Hall 302

II. The Brothers 312

III. Boys at School 319

IV. Adventures of Richard 332

V. Ruth 346

VI. Adventures of Richard (concluded) 359

VII. The Elder Brother 371

VIII. The Sisters 394

IX. The Preceptor Husband 419

X. The Old Bachelor 430

XI. The Maid’s Story 451