improving himself by a course of study and
practice in composition. As in the old Woodbridge days, he made some
congenial acquaintances at a little club that met at a neighbouring
coffee-house, which included a Mr. Bonnycastle and a Mr. Reuben Burrow,
both mathematicians of repute, who rose to fill important positions in
their day. These recreations he diversified with country excursions,
during which he read Horace and Ovid, or searched the woods around
London for plants and insects.

From his first arrival in town Crabbe kept a diary or journal,
addressed to his "Mira" at Parham, and we owe to it a detailed account
of his earlier struggles, three months of the journal having survived
and fallen into his son's hands after the poet's death. Crabbe had
arrived in London in April, and by the end of the month we learn from
the journal that he was engaged upon a work in prose, "A Plan for the
Examination of our Moral and Religious Opinions," and also on a poetical
"Epistle to Prince William Henry," afterwards William IV., who had only
the year before entered the navy as midshipman, but had already seen
some service under Rodney. The next day's entry in the diary tells how
he was not neglecting other possible chances of an honest livelihood. He
had answered an advertisement in the _Daily Advertiser_ for "an
amanuensis, of grammatical education, and endued with a genius capable
of making improvements in the writings of a gentleman not well versed in
the English language." Two days later he called for a reply, only to
find that the gentleman was suited. The same day's entry also records
how he had sent his poem (probably the ode to the young Sailor-Prince)
to Mr. Dodsley. Only a day later he writes. "Judging it best to have two
strings to the bow, and fearing Mr. Dodsley's will snap, I have finished
another little work from that awkward-titled piece, 'The Foes of
Mankind': have run it on to three hundred and fifty lines, and given it
a still more odd name, 'An Epistle from the Devil.' To-morrow I hope to
transcribe it fair, and send it by Monday."

"Mr. Dodsley's reply just received: 'Mr. Dodsley presents his
compliments to the gentleman who favoured him with the enclosed poem,
which he has returned, as he apprehends the sale of it would probably
not enable him to give any consideration. He does not mean to insinuate
a want of merit in the poem, but rather a want of attention in the
public.'"

All this was sufficiently dis