to diagnose the patient's
condition--which they agree is that of "a frenzied child of grace," and
so the poem ends. To one of its last stanzas Crabbe attached an
apologetic note, one of the most remarkable ever penned. It exhibits the
struggle that at that period must have been proceeding in many a
thoughtful breast as to how the new wine of religion could be somehow
accommodated to the old bottles:--

"It has been suggested to me that this change from restlessness to
repose in the mind of Sir Eustace is wrought by a methodistic call; and
it is admitted to be such: a sober and rational conversion could not
have happened while the disorder of the brain continued; yet the verses
which follow, in a different measure," (Crabbe refers to the hymn) "are
not intended to make any religious persuasion appear ridiculous; they
are to be supposed as the effect of memory in the disordered mind of the
speaker, and though evidently enthusiastic in respect to language, are
not meant to convey any impropriety of sentiment."

The implied suggestion (for it comes to this) that the sentiments of
this devotional hymn, written by Crabbe himself, could only have brought
comfort to the soul of a lunatic, is surely as good a proof as the
period could produce of the bewilderment in the Anglican mind caused by
the revival of personal religion under Wesley and his followers.

According to Crabbe's son _Sir Eustace Grey_ was written at Muston in
the winter of 1804-1805. This is scarcely possible, for Crabbe did not
return to his Leicestershire living until the autumn of the latter year.
Probably the poem was begun in Suffolk, and the final touches were added
later. Crabbe seems to have told his family that it was written during a
severe snow-storm, and at one sitting. As the poem consists of
fifty-five eight-lined stanzas, of somewhat complex construction, the
accuracy of Crabbe's account is doubtful. If its inspiration was in some
degree due to opium, we know from the example of S.T. Coleridge that the
opium-habit is not favourable to certainty of memory or the accurate
presentation of facts. After Crabbe's death, there was found in one of
his many manuscript note-books a copy of verses, undated, entitled _The
World of Dreams_, which his son printed in subsequent editions of the
poems. The verses are in the same metre and rhyme-system as _Sir
Eustace_, and treat of precisely the same class of visions as recorded
by the inmate of the asylum. The