In the days of George the third, in the month of

April, 1780, George Crabbe, with the best verses he could

write, a box of clothes, a small case of surgical instruments and three pounds in money, went up to London to seek his fortune.

It seemed a favor able time for the debut of a new

poet. Swift, Pope, Gray and Goldsmith, who occupied so large a place in public estimation, had passed away. Johnson though still alive, had given up the pursuit of poetry. Cowper had not yet made his appearance as a writer, and Burns was still unknown outside the circle of his fellow villagers.

Arrived in London Crabbe took lodgings close to the exchange in the house of Mr. Vickery, a hair dresser, and later removed with him to Bishopgates street, where he lived more than a year. During this me his chief study was to improve in versification, to read such books as he could command, and to take as full and particular a view

of mankind as his time and finances enabled him to do. (1)

Like Johnson who found the streets of London more interesting than any other place in the world, and Pope, who wrote 'the proper study of mankind is man, Crabbe once said, "that he pofe red walking the streets, and observing the faces of the passers-by to the finest natural scene."(2)

Though the time seemed ipe for a new poet, Crabbe went through the same pitiful struggles that other aspirants for fame had endured. He wrote and rewrote his verses, took them to his publisher and that, and was at last reduced to such want that he feared his life must end in a debtor's prison.

Johnson had asked as long ago as the period of Crabbe's birth, "Is not a pat.on, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?" Crabbe seems not to have known that patronage had been dealt its death blow. He wrote to Lord North and to the Earl of Shelburne asking their help.

(1) Crabbe's Life and Poems I. 51.

They paid no atten

(2) Ibid. 284.