158 Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, Articles, &c. 



of letters and autographs in the possession of Mrs. Mackay, of Trow- 

 bridge, and Mr. Broadley, of Bridport, have been largely drawn on. An 

 excellent " Bibliography " of the various editions of the poet's works, 

 and of the many magazine articles relating to them, amounting to some 

 two hundred items, is given on pp. 518—530, and a fairly full index 

 completes the work. 



Of the translator's work it is sufficient to say that one would never 

 guess that the work had not been written in English. 



M. Huchon sums up Crabbe's place in literature thus : — " A writer of 

 transition, classical by origin, realistic by temperament, and romantic 

 on very rare occasions, he failed to harmonise the contradictions which 

 encountered one another in himself and in his poetry : taking his subjects 

 from common lifehe imposed on them the jerky movements of the heroic 

 couplet ; by nature a satirist and a man of science, he became a poet 

 and a clergyman. His character and his work lack the elevation and 

 the harmony which are the stamp of true greatness. He remained 

 isolated, without imitators and without disciples, but he had wielded a 

 decisive influence at the right moment. Better still he had been one of 

 those men, rare in every age, who are bold enough to look reality in the 

 face, if only in one particular, and who relate what they have seen, 

 regardless of prejudices. Compared with this, how unimportant are the 

 trivialities of his philosophical and religious speculations, the defects of 

 his style ? His own method enables us to correct them, and his in- 

 tellectual probity, his robust plain-spokenness, so conspicuous in ' The 

 Village,' remain a great example for us." 



Wiltshire Times, March 30th, 1907, has a long notice of the book with 

 cuts of Trowbridge Church and the poet's memorial tablet there, together 

 with a portrait. 



Annals of the Parish of North Wraxhall, Wilts. 



Bath, Charles Higgins, printer, 1906. 9in. X l\m., wrappers, pp. 168. 

 By the Rev. Francis Harrison, Eector. 



This work is chiefly concerned with the parish registers. A digest of 

 the entries in the registers from 1605 to 1905 is given, showing the 

 number of males and females baptised or buried in each year, with the 

 number of marriages. Then follows the body of the book, pp. 11 — 120, 

 containing " A List of Persons baptised, asked in marriage, married, and 

 buried in North Wraxhall " arranged in one list alphabetically. Pages 

 121 — 134 are filled with elaborate statistics of the population for 1676 

 (Bp. Compton's census) down to the present time, giving the names of 

 all persons occurring in the census of 1891 and 1901. The charities 

 occupy pp. 135 — 139, and pages 140 -166 contain a very detailed account 

 of the Church school, the teachers, reports, grants, &c., from the building 

 of the school in 1832 to the year 1905, when it was handed over to the 

 County Council. The book does not pretend to be in any way a history 

 of the parish. The alphabetical list of the registers is extremely easy of 

 reference, and very useful. 



Reviewed, Wiltshire Notes and Queries, Dec, 1906, pp. 381 — 383. 



