t,
And unresisted win thy noble heart"--

with much more in the same vein of innocent flattery. But once again
Crabbe was doomed to disappointment. He had already, it would seem,
appealed to Lord Chancellor Thurlow, with no better success. Crabbe felt
these successive repulses very keenly, but it is not necessary to tax
North, Shelburne, and Thurlow with exceptional hardness of heart. London
was as full of needy literary adventurers as it had been in the days of
_The Dunciad_, and men holding the position of these ministers and
ex-ministers were probably receiving similar applications every week of
their lives.

During three days in June, Crabbe's attention is diverted from his own
distresses by the Lord George Gordon Riots, of which his journal from
June 8th contains some interesting particulars. He was himself an
eye-witness of some of the most disgraceful excesses of the mob, the
burning of the governor of Newgate's house, and the setting at liberty
of the prisoners. He also saw Lord George himself, "a lively-looking
young man in appearance," drawn in his coach by the mob towards the
residence of Alderman Bull, "bowing as he passed along."

At this point the diary ends, or in any case the concluding portion was
never seen by the poet's son. And yet at the date when it closed, Crabbe
was nearer to at least the semblance of a success than he had yet
approached. He had at length found a publisher willing to print, and
apparently at his own risk, "_The Candidate_--a Poetical Epistle to the
Authors of the _Monthly Review,"_ that journal being the chief organ of
literary criticism at the time. The idea of this attempt to propitiate
the critics in advance, with a view to other poetic efforts in the
future, was not felicitous. The publisher, "H. Payne, opposite
Marlborough House, Pall Mall," had pledged himself that the author
should receive some share of the profits, however small; but even if he
had not become bankrupt immediately after its publication, it is
unlikely that Crabbe would have profited by a single penny. It was
indeed a very ill-advised attempt, even as regards the reviewers
addressed. The very tone adopted, that of deprecation of criticism,
would be in their view a proof of weakness, and as such they accepted
it. Nor had the poem any better chance with the general reader. Its
rhetoric and versification were only one more of the interminable echoes
of the manner of Pope. It had no organic unity. The wea