Your faith's your prop, nor have you pass'd such time
In life's good works as swell them to a crime.
If I of pardon for my sins were sure,
About my goodness I would rest secure.'"

The volume containing _The Parish Register, The Village_, and others,
appeared in the autumn of 1807; and Crabbe's general acceptance as a
poet of mark dates from that year. Four editions were issued by Mr.
Hatchard during the following year and a half--the fourth appearing in
March 1809. The reviews were unanimous in approval, headed by Jeffrey in
the _Edinburgh_, and within two days of the appearance of this article,
according to Crabbe's son, the whole of the first edition was sold off.

At this date, there was room for Crabbe as a poet, and there was still
more room for him as an innovator in the art of fiction. Macaulay, in
his essay on Addison, has pointed out how the Roger de Coverley papers
gave the public of his day the first taste of a new and exquisite
pleasure. At the time "when Fielding was birds-nesting, and Smollett was
unborn," he was laying the foundations of the English novel of real
life. After nearly a hundred years, Crabbe was conferring a similar
benefit. The novel had in the interim risen to its full height, and then
sunk. When Crabbe published his _Parish Register_, the novels of the day
were largely the vapid productions of the Minerva Press, without
atmosphere, colour, or truth. Miss Edgeworth alone had already struck
the note of a new development in her _Castle Rackrent_, not to mention
the delightful stories in _The Parents' Assistant, Simple Susan, Lazy
Lawrence_, or _The Basket-Woman_. Galt's masterpiece, _The Annals of the
Parish_, was not yet even lying unfinished in his desk. The
Mucklebackits and the Headriggs were still further distant. Miss
Mitford's sketches in _Our Village_--the nearest in form to Crabbe's