wise to dwell on village life as it might be, than to reflect
on what it has suffered from man's inhumanity to man. What made Crabbe a
now force in English poetry, was that in his verse Pity appears, after a
long oblivion, as the true antidote to Sentimentalism. The reader is not
put off with pretty imaginings, but is led up to the object which the
poet would show him, and made to feel its horror. If Crabbe is our first
great realist in verse, he uses his realism in the cause of a true
humanity. _Facit indignatio versum._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: I cannot deny myself the pleasure of here acknowledging my
indebtedness to a French scholar, M. Huchon of the University of Nancy.
M. Huchon is himself engaged upon a study of the Life and Poetry of
Crabbe, and in the course of a conversation with me in London, first
called my attention to the volume containing this letter. I agree with
him in thinking that no previous biographer of Crabbe has been aware of
its existence.]

CHAPTER IV

LIFE AT BELVOIR CASTLE AND AT MUSTON

(1783-1792)

"The sudden popularity of _The Village_" writes Crabbe's son and
biographer, "must have produced, after the numberless slights and
disappointments already mentioned, and even after the tolerable success
of _The Library_, about as strong a revulsion in my father's mind as a
ducal chaplaincy in his circumstances; but there was no change in his
temper or manners. The successful author continued as modest as the
rejected candidate for publication had been patient and long-suffering."
The biographer might have remarked as no less strange that the success
of _The Village_ failed, for the moment at least, to convince Crabbe
where his true strength lay. When he again published a poem, two years
later, he reverted to the old Popian topics and methods in a by no means
successful didactic satire on newspapers. Meantime the occasional visits
of the Duke of Rutland and his family to London brought the chaplain
again in touch with the Burkes and the friends he had first made through
them, notably with Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was also able to visit the
theatre occasionally, and fell under the spell, not only of Mrs.
Siddons, but of Mrs. Jordan (in the character of Sir Harry Wildair). It
was now decided that as a nobleman's chaplain it would be well for him
to have a university degree, and to this end his name was entered on the
boards of Trinity College, Cambridge, through the good offices of