still further strengthened the tie between them. Crabbe accompanied the
Duke to London soon after, to assist him in arranging with Stothard for
a picture to be painted of the incident of Lord Robert's death. It was
during this visit that Crabbe received the following letter from Burke.
The letter is undated, but belongs to the month of May, for _The
Village_ was published in that month, and Burke clearly refers to that
poem as just received, but as yet unread. Crabbe seems to have been for
the time off duty, and to have proposed a short visit to the Burkes;--

"Dear Sir,--I do not know by what unlucky accident
you missed the note I left for you at my house. I wrote
besides to you at Belvoir. If you had received these two
short letters you could not want an invitation to a place
where every one considers himself as infinitely honoured and
pleased by your presence. Mrs. Burke desires her best
compliments, and trusts that you will not let the holidays
pass over without a visit from you I have got the poem;
but I have not yet opened it. I don't like the unhappy
language you use about these matters. You do not easily
please such a judgment as your own--that is natural; but
where you are difficult every one else will be charmed. I am,
my dear sir, ever most affectionately yours,

EDMUND BURKE."

The "unhappy language" seems to point to Crabbe having expressed some
diffidence or forebodings concerning his new venture. Yet Crabbe had
less to fear on this head than with most of his early poems. _The
Village_ had been schemed and composed in parts before Crabbe knew
Burke. One passage in it indeed, as we have seen, had first convinced
Burke that the writer was a poet. And in the interval that followed the
poem had been completed and matured with a care that Crabbe seldom
afterwards bestowed upon his productions. Burke himself had suggested
and criticised much during its progress, and the manuscript had further
been submitted through Sir Joshua Reynolds to Johnson, who not only
revised it in detail but re-wrote half a dozen of the opening lines.
Johnson's opinion of the poem was conveyed to Reynolds in the following
letter, and here at last we get a date:--

_March_ 4, 1783.

"Sir,--I have sent you back Mr. Crabbe's poem, which I
read with great delight. It is original, vigorous, and eleg