a great fondness. After considerable time spent in Aldborough, his father found means to send him to the metropolis, in order to make some improvement in the knowledge of his profession. Here he remained eight months, but his funds were so limited that when his money was spent and he returned to Suffolk, he was but little the better for the desultory sort of instruction which had alone been within his reach."

Shortly after his return to Aldborough, he was induced to "set up for himself," but with very little success indeed. He was obviously not fitted for the calling he had embraced. "The sense of a new responsibility pressed sorely and continually on his mind; and he never awoke without shuddering at the thought that some real difficulty might be thrown in his way before night. Ready sharpness of mind, and mechanical cleverness of hand, are the first essentials in a surgeon; and he wanted them both, and knew his deficiences better than any one else did." Hope seemed revived in him at one period. The Warwickshire militia being quartered in the town, he had the practice among them, which somewhat increased his emoluments. He was fortunate in making the acquaintance of some of their officers, especially of Colonel Conway, (who afterward became a celebrated field marshal,) who presented him with several Latin works on his favorite subject, botany. This led him to the study of Latin, and his acquirements in that language opened the works of Horace to him. In the mean time he carefully perused the British poets, and filled his desk with his own productions. This business, however, scarcely afforded him the means of subsistence; and now he began to "indulge the dreams of a young poet."

"One gloomy day, toward the close of the year 1779, he had strolled to a bleak and cheerless part of the cliff, above Aldborough, called the Marsh Hill, brooding, as he went, over the humiliating necessities of his condition. He stopped opposite a shallow, muddy piece of water, as desolate and gloomy as his own mind, called the Leech Pond, and 'it was while gazing on it,' he remarked to his son, one happy morning, 'that I determined to go to London and venture all.'"

Some time before Mr. Crabbe's death an article appeared in the New Monthly Magazine, which then bore the strongest indications of being an auto-biography. We are now assured in his memoir

that it was actually such. In that sketch, he thus alludes to the period of his history at which we have arrived:

"With the best verses he could write, and with very little more, he quitted the place of his birth; not without the most serious apprehensions of the consequence of such a step-apprehensions which were conquered, and barely conquered, by the more certain evil of the prospect before him, should he remain where he was. When he thus fled from a gloomy prospect to one as uncertain, he had not heard of a youthful adventurer, whose fate, it is probable, would, in some degree, have affected his spirits, if it had not caused an alteration in his purpose. Of Chatterton, his extraordinary abilities, his enterprising spirit, his writing in periodical publications, his daring project, and his melancholy fate, he had yet learned nothing; otherwise it may be supposed that a warning of such a kind would have had no small influence upon a mind rather vexed with the present than expecting much from the future, and not sufficiently happy and at ease to draw consolation from vanity-much less from a comparison in which vanity would have found no small mortification."

However, he had determined to go: it only remained to obtain possession of the wherewithal. Of himself he had no resources— his relatives were all poor. He applied to Mr. Dudley North, whom his father had served at some elections, and his letter was so extraordinary for so youthful an author, that Mr. North did not hesitate a moment. The sum he requested, five pounds, was immediately advanced; George started for the metropolis, and landed in London, the "master of a box of clothes, a small case of surgical instruments, and three pounds in money."

And now that we have accompanied the poet to London, we are with him at the most interesting period of his life. With all the great obstacles which he had to encounter, he went to town at a time not unfavorable to a new candidate in poetry. The opening of the third chapter of his memoir, by his son, is so very descriptive of the state of the literary world at that period that we cannot forbear inserting it :

"The giants, Swift and Pope, had passed away, leaving each in his department examples never to be excelled; but the style of each had been so long imitated by inferior persons, that the world was not unlikely to welcome some one who should strike into a newer path. The strong and powerful satirist, Churchill, the classic Gray, and the inimitable Goldsmith, had also departed; and, more recently still, Chatterton had paid the bitter penalty of his imprudence, under circumstances which must surely have rather disposed the patrons of talent to watch the next opportunity that might offer itself of encou

raging genius by poverty depressed.' The stupendous Johnson, unrivaled in general literature, had, from an early period, withdrawn himself from poetry. Cowper, destined to fill so large a space in the public eye, somewhat later, had not yet appeared as an author; and as for Burns, he was still unknown beyond the obscure circle of his fellow-villagers."

When he arrived in London he had but one acquaintance, Mrs. Burcham, a particular friend of his lady-love, and the wife of a linen-draper, in Cornhill. They invited him to make their house his home, but he declined doing so, (he was quite as proud as poor!) yet took lodgings near them, with a Mr. Vickery, a very respectable hair-dresser. In this lodging he spent more than a year, endeavoring to improve himself in versification, and in the study of human nature. He formed an acquaintance with three talented young men, then as poor and obscure as himself, but who afterward arose to high stations in society; Mr. Dalby, late Professor of Mathematics at Marlow, Mr. Reuben Burrow, who died in a high civil office in Bengal, and Mr. Bonnycastle, for many years the master of the Military Academy at Woolwich.

As soon as he had completed some short pieces in verse he offered them for publication, but they were rejected. He attributed this to lack of merit, and devoted himself more assiduously to his studies. "While he was preparing a more favorable piece for the inspection of a gentleman whom he had then in view, he hazarded the publication of an anonymous performance, and had the satisfaction of hearing, in due time, that something (not much, indeed— but a something was much) would arise from it." His publisher, however, failed; and profit and fame were still only prospective. The production alluded to was called, "The Candidate, a Poetical Epistle to the Authors of the Monthly Review," and was published in 1780. The failure of his publisher threw him into considerable embarrassment, and now he was reduced to an extreme. He wrote to the premier, Lord North; to Lord Shelburne; and to the chancellor Thurlow, but without success.

The most interesting part of Mr. Crabbe's memoir is the journal which he kept during three months of the miserable year he spent in London. It is dedicated to his "Mira," a name under which he chose to celebrate Miss Elmy. We shall give detached passages, showing the melancholy position in which he was placed.

"April 28, 1780. I thank Heaven my spirits are not at all affected by Dodsley's refusal. I have not been able to get the poem ready for Mr. Becket to-day, but will take some pains with it. I find myself under the disagreeable necessity of vending or pawning some of my more useless articles; accordingly, have put into a paper such as cost about two or three guineas, and, being silver, have not greatly lessened in their value. The conscientious pawn-broker allowed me—' he thought he might'--half a guinea for them. I took it very readily, being determined to call for them very soon, and then, if I afterward wanted, carry them to some less voracious animal of the kind.

"May 10. Mr. Becket said just what Mr. Dodsley wrote, 'twas a very pretty thing, but, sir, these little pieces the town do not regard: it has merit-perhaps some other may.' It will be offered to no other, sir. 'Well, sir, I am obliged to you, but,' &c., and so these little affairs have their end. I don't think there's a man in London worth but fourpence-halfpenny-for I've this moment sent seven farthings for a pint of porter-who is so resigned to his poverty.

"May 16. O! my dear Mira, how you distress me! You inquire into my affairs, and love not to be denied-yet you must. To what purpose should I tell you the particulars of my gloomy situation; that I have parted with my money, sold my wardrobe, pawned my watch, am in debt to my landlord, and, finally, at some loss how to eat a week longer? Yet you say, Tell me all. Ah, my dear Sally, do not desire it; you must not be told these things. Appearance is what distresses me: I must have dress, and am horribly fearful I shall accompany fashion with fasting; but a fortnight more will tell me of a certainty.

"May 18. A day of bustle-twenty shillings to pay a tailor, when the stock amounted to thirteen and threepence. Well; there were instruments to part with, that fetched no less than eight shillings more; but twenty-one shillings and threepence would yet be so poor a superfluity, that the muse would never visit till the purse was recruited; for, say men what they will, she does not love empty pockets nor poor living. Now, you must know, my watch was mortgaged for less than it ought, so I redeemed and repledged it, which has made me the tailor paid, and the day's expenses-at this instant worth (let me count my cash) ten shillings a rare case, and most bountiful provision of fortune!

"May 20. The cash, by a sad temptation, greatly reduced. An unlucky book-stall presented to the eyes three volumes of Dryden's Works, octavo, five shillings. Prudence, however, got the better of the devil, when she whispered me to bid three shillings and sixpence : after some hesitation, that prevailed with the woman, and I carried reluctantly home, I believe, a fair bargain, but a very ill-judged one.

"It's the vilest thing in the world to have but one coat. My only one has happened with a mischance, and how to manage it is some difficulty. A confounded stove's modish ornament caught its elbow, and rent it half away. Pinioned to the side it came home, and I ran deploring to my loft. In the dilemma, it occurred to me to turn tailor myself; but how to get materials to work with puzzled me. At last I went running down in a hurry, with three or four sheets of paper

in my hand, and begged for a needle, &c., to sew them together. This finished my job, and but that it is somewhat thicker, the elbow is a good one yet.

"These are foolish things, Mira, to write or speak, and we may laugh at them; but I'll be bound to say they are much more likely to make a man cry where they happen-though I was too much of a philosopher for that, however not one of those who preferred a ragged coat to a whole one."

These are a few of the passages which make up the "Poet's Journal," with the addition of scraps of poetry, sketches of sermons, and very devout prayers. He was now reduced to the greatest straits, without friends, without money, starvation and a prison staring him in the face, with no earthly resources but those to which honesty forbad him to stoop. He looked around him for a friend and a guide, and finally "he fixed, impelled by some propitious influence, in some happy moment, upon EDMUnd Burke." His letter to this honorable gentleman, in which he presents him with a short sketch of his career, and an account of his circumstances, is a most masterly performance, and but for its length we should be pleased to insert it entire. The immense burden of duty which pressed upon the statesman at this period did not prevent him from giving immediate attention to this letter and its writer. He sent for Crabbe, "and the short interview that ensued, entirely and for ever changed the nature of his worldly prospects. He was, in the common phrase, ‘a made man' from that hour. He went into Mr. Burke's room a poor young adventurer, spurned by the opulent, and rejected by the publishers, his last shilling gone, and all but his last hope with it: he came out virtually secure of almost all the good fortune that, by successive steps, afterward fell to his lot." Had this assistance been withheld another week, or another month, the names of Chatterton and Crabbe might have been written in one epitaph. This generous act will throw a halo around Edmund Burke's name when his mighty achievements upon the political arena will be comparatively forgotten. He took the young poet to his own house, introduced him to his principal friends, among whom were Mr. Fox, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Dr. Samuel Johnson. He submitted to Mr. Burke a mass of miscellaneous poems, from which those called "The Library," and "The Village," were selected for publication. Mr. Burke's patronage, doubtless, had some influence in producing the favorable notices