CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH CLASSICS
Poems
by
George Crabbe
In Three Volumes
GEORGE CRABBE
Born, 1754
Died, 1832
GEORGE CRABBE
POEMS
EDITED BY
ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD
Litt.D., Hon. LL.D., F.B.A.
Master of Peterhouse
Volume II
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1906
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
C. F. CLAY, Manager.
London:FETTER LANE, E.C.
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Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
[All Rights reserved]
PREFACE.
The poems contained in this volume, which comprise the whole of theTales and the first eleven of the Tales of the Hall,are without exception printed from the edition of 1823, the last ofCrabbe’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 theyounger Crabbe’s edition of his father’s Life and Poems (1834).The Variants in the Tales of the Hall are from the firstedition (1819); from the ‘Original MS.’ readings as above; from theCrabbe MSS. in the possession of the Cambridge University Press(which will be described in the Preface to Vol. III, wherea much fuller use will be made of them), and from the MSS. in thevaluable collection of Mrs Mackay of Trowbridge, most kindly lent byher for examination and use (to which the same remark applies). Inthe present volume will also be found certain Addenda to theVariants in Vol. I, from the ‘Original MS.’ readingsprinted by the younger Crabbe.
Among the Errata in this volume are included a considerable numberof quotations from Shakespeare with wrong indications of acts orscenes, and occasionally even of the plays from which the passagesare taken. A large proportion of the quotations are in themselvesimperfect, or otherwise incorrect. Perhaps it is stretching[Pg vi]a point to treat all these defects as oversights; sometimes Crabbemay have made intentional changes, and more frequently he may havebeen wilfully careless. No readings which he could have found in anycurrent edition of Shakespeare have been altered.
In the preparation of the present volume, I have again enjoyedthe advantage of the friendly aid and cooperation of Mr A. T.Bartholomew, to whom I am specially indebted for the compilationof the Variants. Our joint efforts have been occasionally defeatedby the illegibility of passages in the Crabbe MSS. acquired by ourUniversity Press. It is hoped that the third and concluding volume ofthis edition, which will contain a considerable amou