That when the brains were out, the man would die,

And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.

Macbeth.

The Father of Peter a Fisherman

His Grief for the old Man

- Peter's early Conduct He takes an Apprentice

The Boy's Suffering and Fate - A second Boy: how he

died.

Peter acquitted— A third Apprentice - A Voyage - Evil Report on Peter:

by Sea: the Boy does not return

he is tried and threatened Lives alone

His Melancholy and incipient Madness Is observed and visited - He escapes and is taken: is lodged in a Parish-house: Women attend and watch him He speaks in a Delirium: grows

more collected - His Account of his Feelings and visionary Terrors previous to his Death.

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER XXII.

PETER GRIMES. (1)

OLD Peter Grimes made fishing his employ,
His wife he cabin'd with him and his boy,
And seem'd that life laborious to enjoy :
To town came quiet Peter with his fish,
And had of all a civil word and wish.
He left his trade upon the Sabbath-day,
And took young Peter in his hand to pray:
But soon the stubborn boy from care broke loose,
At first refused, then added his abuse:

His father's love he scorn'd, his power defied,
But being drunk, wept sorely when he died.

(1) [The original of Peter Grimes was an old fisherman of Aldborough, while Mr. Crabbe was practising there as a surgeon. He had a succession of apprentices from London, and a certain sum with each. As the boys all disappeared under circumstances of strong suspicion, the man was warned by some of the principal inhabitants, that if another followed in like manner, he should certainly be charged with murder.]

Yes! then he wept, and to his mind there came Much of his conduct, and he felt the shame,How he had oft the good old man reviled, And never paid the duty of a child; How, when the father in his Bible read, He in contempt and anger left the shed: "It is the word of life," the parent cried; "This is the life itself," the boy replied; And while old Peter in amazement stood, Gave the hot spirit to his boiling blood: How he, with oath and furious speech, began Το prove his freedom and assert the man; And when the parent check'd his impious rage, How he had cursed the tyranny of age,— Nay, once had dealt the sacrilegious blow On his bare head, and laid his parent low; The father groan'd—“If thou art old," said he, "And hast a son - thou wilt remember me:

66

Thy mother left me in a happy time,

"Thou kill'dst not her- Heav'n spares the double crime."

On an inn-settle, in his maudlin grief, This he revolved, and drank for his relief.

Now lived the youth in freedom, but debarr'd
From constant pleasure, and he thought it hard;
Hard that he could not every wish obey,
But must awhile relinquish ale and play;
Hard! that he could not to his cards attend,
But must acquire the money he would spend.