Will you deem them amply paid in health, Labou.'s fair child, that languishes with wealth? Go then and see them rising with the sun, Through a long course of daily toil to run; See them beneath the dog-star's raging heat, When the knees tremble and the temples beat; Behold them, leaning on their scythes, look o'er The labour passed, and tiols to come explore; See them alternate suns and showers engage, And hoard up aches and anguish for their age; Through fens and marshy moors their steps pursue, When their warm pores imbibe the evening dew;

Their own labour may as fatal be

To these thy slaves, as thine excess to thee." (1)

h

Or will you praise that homely, healty fare,

Plenteous and plain, that happy peasants share!

Oh trifle not with wants you cannot feel,

Nor mock the misery of a stinted meal;

Homely, notwholesome, plain, not plenteous, such

As you who praise would never deign to couch. (2)

(1) Crabbe II. 79-80. (2) Ibid. 0-ol.

"Go! If the peaceful cot your praises share,

Go look within, and ask if peace be there;

If peace be his-that drooping weary sire,

Or theirs, that offspring round their feeble fire;

Or hers, that matron pale, whose trembling hand Turns on the wretched hearth th' expiring brand.'(1)

Poor Houses.

"Theirs is yon Housethat holds the parish poor, Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door; There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day; There children dwell who know no parents' care; Parents who know no childrens' love, dwell there! Hear-broken matrons on their joyless bed,

Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed;

Dejected widows with unheeded tears,

And crippled age with more than childhood fears;

The lams, he blind, and, far the happiest they!

The moping idiot, and the madman gay." (2)

(1) Crabbe II. 81.

(2) Ibid. 83.

Grandsires are there, who now no more must see,

No more must, nurse upon the trembling knee

The lost loved daughter's infant progeny:

Like death's dread mansion this allows not place

For joyful meetings of a kindred race.

Is not the matron the re to whom the son

in

Was wont at each decling day to run,

He (when his tol was over) gave delight

By lifting up the latch, and one "Good night"?
Yes she is there; but nightly to her door
The son, still lab'ring, can return no more.
Widows are here, who in their huts were left,
Of husbands, children, plenty, ease bereft,
'Tis cheerless living in such bounded view,
With nothing dreadful, but with nothing new;
Nothing to bring them joy, to make them weep,-
The day itself, is like the night, asleep,

Or on the sameness if a break be made,

'Tis by some pauper to his grave conveyed;

By smuggled news from neighb'ring village told,
News never true, or truth a twelvemonth old.(1)

(1) Crabbe III. 288,9. Note: Leuters XIII. and XVI. of the Borough (Crabbe III.) deal with the subject of alms houses and thei. inhabitants. LettersXVIII. and XXII. with the poor.