hat he is now working hard to qualify, and has not
only Latin, but some smattering of Greek." It had its gracious
amenities, that eighteenth century, for I do not believe that there is a
man in the ranks of the present Government, or of the present Opposition,
who would take all this trouble for a poor unknown who had appealed to
him merely by two or three long letters recounting his career. Nay,
Cabinet Ministers are less punctilious than formerly, and the newest
type, I understand, leaves letters unanswered. I can imagine the
attitude of one of our modern statesmen in the face of two quite bulky
packages of many sheets from a young author. He would request his
secretary to see what they were all about, and then would follow the curt
answer--"I am directed by Dash to say that he cannot comply with your
request." Burke not only wrote to the Speaker of the House of Commons,
but enclosed Crabbe's letter to him, a quite wonderful piece of
autobiography. {100} All Crabbe's admirers should read that letter.
Crabbe apologizes for writing again, and refers to "these repeated
attacks on your patience." "My father," he said, "had a place in the
Custom House at Aldeburgh. He had a large family, a little income and no
economy," and then the story of his life up to that time is told to Burke
in fullest detail.

Again, there is that other statesman-admirer of Crabbe, Charles James
Fox. Fox gave to Crabbe's work an admiration which never faltered, and
on his death-bed requested that the pathetic story of Phoebe Dawson in
_The Parish Register_ should be read to him--it was, we are told, "the
last piece of poetry that soothed his dying ear."

In Lord Holland's _Memoirs of the Whig Party_ there is a statement by his
nephew which no biographer so far has quoted:--

I read over to him the whole of Crabbe's _Parish Register_ in
manuscript. Some parts he made me read twice; he remarked several
passages as exquisitely beautiful, and objected to some few which I
mentioned to the author and which he, in almost every instance,
altered before publication. Mr. Fox repeated once or twice that it
was a very pretty poem, that Crabbe's condition in the world had
improved since he wrote _The Village_, and his view of life, likewise
_The Parish Register_, bore marks of considerably more indulgence to
our species; though not so many as he could have wished, especially as
the few touches of that nature were beau