y from Study; melancholy strife!
Who then can say, but bounty now so free,
And so diffused, may find its way to me?
Yes! I may see my decent table yet
Cheered with the meal that adds not to my debt;
May talk of those to whom so much we owe,
And guess their names whom yet we may not know;
Blest, we shall say, are those who thus can give,
And next, who thus upon the bounty live;
Then shall I close with thanks my humble meal,
And feel so well--Oh! God! how shall I feel!"

Crabbe is known to most readers to-day by the delightful parody of his
style in the _Rejected Addresses,_ which appeared in the autumn of 1812,
and it was certainly on _The Borough_ that James Smith based his
imitation. We all remember the incident of Pat Jennings's adventure in
the gallery of the theatre. The manner of the narrative is borrowed from
Crabbe's lighter and more colloquial style. Every little foible of the
poet, when in this vein, is copied with great skill. The superfluity of
information, as in the case of--

"John Richard William Alexander Dwyer,"

whose only place in the narrative is that he preceded Pat Jennings's
father in the situation as

"Footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire";

or again in the detail that,

"Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy
Up as a corn-cutter--a safe employ"

(a perfect Crabbian couplet), is imitated throughout, Crabbe's habit of
frequent verbal antithesis, and even of something like punning, is
exactly caught in such a couplet as:

"Big-worded bullies who by quarrels live--
Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give."

Much of the parody, no doubt, exhibits the fanciful humour of the
brothers Smith, rather than of Crabbe, as is the case with many
parodies. Of course there are couplets here and there in Crabbe's
narratives which justify the burlesque. We have:

"What is the truth? Old Jacob married thrice;
He dealt in coals, and avarice was his vice,"

or the lines which the parodists themselves quote in their
justification,

"Something had happened wrong about a Bill
Which was not drawn with true mercantile skill,
So to amend it I was told to go,
And seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co."

But lines such as these in fact occur only at long intervals. Crabbe's
couplets are more often pedestrian rather than grotesque.

The poet himself, as the witty brothers relate with some pride, was by
no means displeased or offended by the liberty taken.