he saw something of the splendor and etiquette of high life, but with no great addition to his happiness. He went to London with the Duke, and received an invitation to dine with Lord Thurlow, who, before he left the house, gave him the small livings of Frome St. Quintin, and Evershot in Dorsetshire. He has tened to Beules with the grateful intelligence that he was at length entitled, without imprudence, to claim the longpledged hand of Miss Elmy. They were accordingly married in the month of December, 1783, and shortly after took up their abode in the apartments destined for their use at Belvoir Castle; and, as it was the time of non-residence and pluralities, he did the work of his Dorsetshire livings by deputy. As it was soon found to be a disagreeable thing to inhabit the house of an absent family, the duke having gone to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, Mr. Crabbe took the neighboring curacy of Strathern, and transferred himself to the humble parsonage attached to that office. He had several children; but only two sons grew up to manhood, and became clergymen.

The four years spent at Strathern, Crabbe often said, were, on the whole, the very happiest in his life. He could now ramble amidst the rich woods of Belvoir; at home, his garden afforded him health and amusement; and his situation as a mere curate prevented him from deing drawn into any unpleasant disputes with the villagers around him. From his thirty-first to his fifty-second year he buried himself completely in the obscurity of domestic and village life; and, although he had gained admission for a time into the most brilliant society of the metropolis by means of his "Library," "Village," and "Newspaper," he was gradually forgotten as a living author, and was only known by name to a few who read certain striking passages which had been inserted in the "Elegant Extracts." In September, 1807, a volume of poems by Mr. Crabbe was published containing, with his earlier pieces, "The Parish Register," and some smaller poems; and from this time he took his place among the foremost of living British poets.

In the autumn of 1795, Mr. Crabbe met, at Mr. North's, a large party of

some of the most eminent men in the kingdom: Mr. Grey, afterwards Earl Grey, the Earl of Laudersdale, Dr. Parr, and Mr. Fox, who, recognizing Mr. Crabbe, whom he had formerly met in the society of Burke, Reynolds, and Johnson, courteously expressed his disappointment that his pen had been so long unemployed, and promised to revise any future poem which he might prepare for publication. When the "Parish Register" was nearly completed, in 1806, Mr. Fox was harassed by the cares of office, and smitten with a disease which was soon to prove fatal. Mr. Crabbe was too considerate to remind him of his promise, but wrote to the great statesman to say that it would afford much gratification if he might be permitted to dedicate the forthcoming volume to Mr. Fox. He repeated his offer, and the manuscript was sent to him at St. Anne's Hill; it was heard by Mr. Fox, and excited interest enough to gain his approval. This poem, more especially the story of Phoebe Dawson, were the last compositions of their kind that engaged and amused the capacious, candid, and benevolent mind of that great man.

The "Parish Register" was followed by "The Borough," "Tales," and "Tales of the Hall;" for which last work, and the copyright of his former productions, Mr. Murray gave him the munificent sum of £3,000.

Lord Thurlow having, at the personal solicitation of the Duchess of Rutland, exchanged the two small livings in Dorsetshire for two of superior value in the Vale of Belvoir, Mr. Crabbe became Rector of Muston, in Leicestershire, and the neighboring parish of Allington, in Lincolnshire. In February, 1789, he left Strathern, and brought his family to the parsonage of Muston. But in October, 1792, being summoned into Suffolk to act as executor to Mr. Tovell, a relative of his wife, still a determined nonresident, he resolved to place a curate at Muston, and to go and reside at Parham, in Suffolk, taking charge of some church in that neighborhood. He continued this mode of clerical duty in Suffolk for about ten years, when the bishops began, very properly, to urge all non-resident incumbents to return to their livings; and, although Dr. Prettyman, the Bishop

of Lincoln, was personally requested to allow Mr. Crabbe to remain in Suffolk, his lordship would not yield, observing that Muston and Allington had a prior claim. He accordingly returned to Muston in October, 1805, where he continued till, in June, 1841, he was inducted to the charge of Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, not very far from Bath and B.istol, in which charge he continued for nearly eighteen years, till his death, in February, 1832, in the, seventy-eighth year of his age, and fifty years after his introduction to Burke.

Mr. Crabbe's non-residence in the parishes of which he was properly the rector was productive of some inconvenience to their inhabitants. His cures had been served by diligent and respectable clergymen, but they had been often changed, and some of them had never resided within the parish. When he himself did the duty of curate in the parishes of Suffolk, he was regular and assiduous in the usual routine of duty-so kind that he would put off a meditated journey rather than leave a poor parishioner who required his services. Still, he had not that deep and genuine sense of religion which was profitable to his own soul, or likely to impress his hearers with the importance of vital godliness. But in the last ten years of his life there seems to have occurred the indispensable change which must come over the inner man when he becomes a true believer in Christ. Mr. Crabbe had a more correct

view of Christian doctrine, a more chastened humility of mind, a warmer love for the Word of God, and a calmer hope in the near prospect of eternity.

We have put together these notices of the life of Crabbe to show how the generosity of one noble mind was the means of lifting him from obscurity and wretchedness to the long enjoyment of an honorable and happy life; an illustration of Cecil's remark, that the history of a man's own life is, to himself, the most interesting history in the world next to that of the Scriptures. God, though unseen, works wonderfully in arranging the events of every life; and, though the vast majority of mankind give little heed to this undoubted fact, whoso is wise will observe these things, and shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord.

It is not our intention to enter into any criticism on the poems of Crabbe : the taste of our age has left them behind; but they may still be read with amusement and instruction. They are not always very flattering reading; they exhibit guilt and poverty in their real colors, and do not present human life dressed up in the conventional language of poetry. He has been called the Hogarth of Song, and is well characterized by the inscription on his monument, in Trowbridge church, as

"Nature's sternest painter, yet her BEST."

the Christian sculptors may be picked out of divers books where they are placed in company with those of other celebrities; but we know of no book which has hith erto treated the subject separately and fully. The study of sculpture has long been almost exclusively that of the antique; and although no one can for a moment deny the immense superiority of Greek sculpture to all that has been since produced, the position assigned to it as the only model for imitation has produced some unfortunate results. It has led sculptors to look upon anatomical display and beauty of form as the objects to be attained, and to consider meaning and sentiment as secondary or unimportant points in their art. Jupiters, Apollos, and Venuses were originally monuments of the religion of the ancients, and appealed to their feelings and understandings they excite our admiration now only by their beauty of execution. It is not enough for Christian sculpture that it should attain merely this latter form of excellence. The Christian sculptor should speak to us through his art as the pagan spoke to his contemporaries. He has a nobler and purer faith to illustrate and teach, and if it affords less opportunity for displaying the beauty of nude forms, it makes ample amends for this deficiency by the occasions it offers for exhibiting the highest emotions, and for telling a history which never loses its hold upon our feelings.

In some of the most important branches of the Christian Church, sculpture has never attained to so intimate a connection with religion as the sister art of painting. It was proscribed by the iconoclasm of the Greek Church, and is still excluded from her temples; and the Protestant Churches of Germany and England have not entirely ceased to view with hostile suspicion the images to which an undue reverence was paid by the faith of Rome. But the Catholic faith of the middle ages was, on the contrary, eminently favorable to sculpture and made lavish use of it. Accordingly, long before painting had acquired perfection, the persons and events of the Gospel narratives were rendered familiar to the people by innumerable sculptured images or reliefs, and the great cathedrals of the thirteenth century are adorned in every part with gra

ven works which illustrate with every variety of detail their matchless architecture. In Tuscany, more especially, a school of religious sculpture arose at the very beginning of that age which has the strongest claim to our attention and interest.

The progress of this school, from its commencement to its decline, forms the subject of the important work the title of which stands first at the head of this article. Its author, Mr. Perkins, an American gentleman, has devoted much time and study to the task, and proposes to continue his researches into the history of sculpture in Northern, Southern, and Eastern Italy. His two volumes contain a clear account of the lives and works of all the Tuscan sculptors of importance from the Pisani to the scholars of Michael Angelo, and sufficient notices of many of the obscure artists. The criticisms are singularly fair, showing an intimate knowledge of the subject and a just appreciation of the merits of different schools. An historical narrative binds together the biographical and artistic portions of the work, and enables the reader to judge of the effects which political events produced upon the arts. The style of the book is easy and agreeable, and, above all, perfectly free from those affectations and eccentricities which some writers on Art seem to consider necessary to their subject. The illustrations, which have been executed with great skill and elegance from the designs of the author, are remarkably beautiful, and make us regret that they are not more numerous. We can not but lament, also, that in cases where Mr. Perkins has selected particular statues or bas-reliefs from a large work, he should not have given a general sketch showing their position in the composition. Such illustrations would have been particularly useful to persons who have never seen the objects described, and who can not sketch with their mind's eye while reading his account. We need only add, before proceeding to a detailed examination of these volumes, that with regard to indexes, tables of contents, chronological tables, and marginal references, they leave nothing to be desired by the student. Mr. Perkins has resisted the temptation of beginning his history "before the deluge," or of tracing the

connection of Tuscan sculpture with that of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece; but he has given in his introduction a sufficient idea of the darkness in which the sculptors were groping till the end of the twelfth century, to enable us to appreciate the brilliancy of the light shed by the appearance of the great Niccolà Pisano. There were no doubt sculptors before Niccolà; but,

"As all these medieval artists who are called

Taglia Pietre in contemporary documents and inscriptions, regarded sculpture as the humble handmaid of architecture, and made statuettes to crown the pinnacles or fill the niches of buildings, but never as separate entities, they may rather be classed as architectural stonecutters than as sculptors; and as such we shall pass them over for the sake of their more illustrious successors." (P. lvi.)

Niccolà Pisano was born at Pisa, between the years 1205 and 1207. He was the son of a notary (not certainly a very artistic parentage,) but his natural gifts were such that when scarce fifteen years old he had so far profited by his studies among the workshops of the Duomo as to be appointed architect to Frederic II., at Naples, a testimony to his talents which is all the stronger from the fact that this accomplished monarch is said to have been himself a practical architect. Unfortunately, we have now no means of judging of the merits of his earliest buildings as they were completely remodelled in the sixteenth century.

After ten years spent at Naples, Niccolà went to Padua to design the Basilica of St. Antonio, a singular but grand and picturesque edifice, exhibiting a jumble of styles which Mr. Perkins excuses by giving various plausible reasons for Niccola's eclecticism, but which Mr. Fergusson, not being a biographer, criticises without any reserve ; "A signal failure was," he says, "the result, for an uglier church can hardly be found anywhere."* But it is as a sculptor that we have now to do with Niccolà, and we therefore turn with interest to his first known work, an alto-relievo of the "Deposition," over one of the side doors of the cathedral of St. Martino at Lucca. He has most carefully followed in it the traditional account of the taking down of our Lord's

*Handbook of Architecture, vol. ii. p. 769.

Body from the Cross, and has succeeded in so grouping the figures as to make a beautiful composition, thus at once excelling his predecessors, who always placed them in a row. For some years after the completion of his work at Lucca, Niccolà appears to have been chiefly employed as an architect in building churches and palaces, and, we regret to add, as an instrument of party vengeance in destroying many fine edifices which had belonged to the Guelphs. It was not till the year 1260 that he began the pulpitt in the Baptistery at Pisa, which may be considered as the commencement of his second style, and the foundation of the Pisan school. That his second style was formed by the study of antique sculpture can not be doubted, for not only does its general character distinctly show it, but two of his reliefs upon the pulpit are directly imitated from figures on ancient monuments in the Campo Santo.

His next important commission was the Arca di San Domenico at Bologna, a sarcophagus made to contain the bones of that saint, in the execution of which he was assisted by his pupil Fra Guglielmo Agnelli. The bas-reliefs on this monument are admirable examples of Niocolà's power of composition and illustration, and are the more remarkable because these subjects from the life of the saint had probably never before been represented.

It is never otherwise than interesting to know what remuneration great artists have received, and we are therefore fortunate in being able to ascertain from the contract which he signed upon undertaking the pulpit in the Duomo at Siena, the rate at which he was paid for his labors. He agreed to live at Siena till its completion, with liberty to visit Pisa four times a year for a fortnight at a time, and to receive eight soldi a day (a sum equivalent to twelve Tuscan pauls of the present currency, or about five shillings of our money,) besides his living. The Siena pulpit does not show that he had made any further advance in art since completing that at Pisa, for two of the subjects were almost exactly repeated; but it en

+ More properly speaking a pergamo or double ambo, having two desks, one for reading the Gospel, one lower down for the Epistle.