Let us compare the different ways in which Crabbe and Foster (certainly
a _prose_ poet) deal with a library. Crabbe describes minutely and
successfully the outer features of the volumes, their colours, clasps,
the stubborn ridges of their bindings, the illustrations which adorn
them, so well that you feel yourself among them, and they become
sensible to touch almost as to sight. But there he stops, and sadly
fails, we think, in bringing out the living and moral interest which
gathers around a multitude of books, or even around a single volume.
This Foster has amply done. The speaking silence of a number of books,
where, though it were the wide Bodleian or Vatican, not one whisper
could be heard, and yet where, as in an antechamber, so many great
spirits are waiting to deliver their messages--their churchyard
stillness continuing even when their readers are moving to their pages,
in joy or agony, as to the sound of martial instruments--their awaking,
as from deep slumber, to speak with miraculous organ, like the shell
which has only to be lifted, and 'pleased it remembers its august
abodes, and murmurs as the ocean murmurs there'--their power of drawing
tears, kindling blushes, awakening laughter, calming or quickening the
motions of the life's-blood, lulling to repose, or rousing to
restlessness--the meaning which radiates from their quiet
countenances--the tale of shame or glory which their title-pages
tell--the memories suggested by the character of their authors, and of
the readers who have throughout successive centuries perused them--the
thrilling thoughts excited by the sight of names and notes inscribed on
their margins or blank pages by hands long since mouldered in the dust,
or by those dear to us as our life's-blood, who have been snatched from
our sides--the aspects of gaiety or of gloom connected with the bindings
and the age of volumes--the effects of sunshine playing as if on a
congregation of happy faces, making the duskiest shine and the gloomiest
be glad--or of shadow suffusing a sombre air over all--the joy of the
proprietor of a large library, who feels that Nebuchadnezzar watching
great Babylon, or Napoleon reviewing his legions, will not stand
comparison with himself seated amid the broad maps, and rich prints, and
numerous volumes which his wealth has enabled him to enjoy--all such
hieroglyphics of interest and meaning has Foster included and
interpreted in one gloomy but noble meditation, and his introduction to
Doddridge is the true 'Poem on the Library'.--G. GILFILLAN. _Gallery of
Literary Portraits: George Crabbe._