ABSTRACT
There is much good satire well applied in The Newspaper, but we must not exceed our limits by farther quotations from the Poems, especially as we have some parts of the Preface still to notice. We could wish, however, that the author had enlarged this poem, as a considerable revolution has occurred in the management of newspapers ince it was written, which would have afforded him ample food for satire, and which, indeed, call loudly for the satirical lash. Of the smaller poems we think Sir Eustace Grey and the Hall of Justice unquestionably the best, and the Birth of Flattery the least pleasing; but it is fair to add, that our dislike to allegorical poems in general may possibly influence our opinion. Of The Library and The Village too much cannot be said in their praise; it may, however, perhaps be objected to the latter, that if Goldsmith has fallen into one extreme in his delineation of village manners, Mr. Crabbe has here fallen into the other; and that Goldsmith's is the most pleasing delusion of the two. Still it must be acknowledged that there is much truth and nature even in the most disgusting scenes which Mr. C. exhibits. We are happy to see the apologetical note at the end of The Village, for it always appeared to us that the censure which the passage there alluded to conveyed on the clergy, was, in its general application, both severe and unjust. Mr. C. writes nuptual for nuptial, and indure for endure, for which there is, we believe, no authority, and which indeed no authority could justify. He also uses projection as synonymous with project, which though strictly defensible, is nevertheless extremely awkward and dissonant. The punctuation, too, throughout the volume, is extremely defective; whence we are led to suspect, that a point so essential was left entirely to the management of the printer. (The review ends with a long quotation from the preface and a short comment on it.)
