A fresh edition of Crabbe's complete works was at once arranged for by John Murray, to be edited by George Crabbe, the son, who was also to furnish the prefatory memoir. The edition appeared in 1834, in eight volumes. An engraving by Finden from Phillips's portrait of the poet was prefixed to the last volume, and each volume contained frontispieces and vignettes from drawings by Clarkson Stanfield of scenery or buildings connected with Crabbe's various residences in Suffolk and the Yale of Belvoir. The volumes were ably edited; the editor's notes, together with, quotations from Crabbe's earliest critics in the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_, were interesting and informing, and the illustrations happily chosen. But it is not so easy to acquiesce in an editorial decision on a more important matter. The eighth volume is occupied by a selection from the Tales left in manuscript by Crabbe, to which reference has already been made. The son, whose criticisms of his father are generally sound, evidently had misgivings concerning these from the first. In a prefatory note to this volume, the brothers (writing as executors) confess these misgivings. They were startled on reading the new poems in print at the manifest need of revision and correction before they could be given to the world. They delicately hint that the meaning is often obscure, and the "images left imperfect." This criticism is absolutely just, but unfortunately some less well-judging persons though "of the highest eminence in literature" had advised the contrary. So "second thoughts prevailed," instead of those "third thoughts which are a riper first," and the Tales, or a selection from them, were printed. They have certainly not added to Crabbe's reputation. There are occasional touches of his old and best pathos, as in the story of Rachel; and in _The Ancient Mansion_ there are brief descriptions of rural nature under the varying aspects of the seasons, which exhibit all Crabbe's old and close observation of detail, such as:-- "And then the wintry winds begin to blow, Then fall the flaky stars of gathering snow, When on the thorn the ripening sloe, yet blue, Takes the bright varnish of the morning dew; The aged moss grows brittle on the pale, The dry boughs splinter in the windy gale."