_Codrus_ of Juvenal's satire:

"Still must I hear? shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl
His creaking couplets in a Tavern-Hall?"

His poem for this year, 1809, is printed at length in the _Gentleman's
Magazine_ for April--and also Crabbe's, recited at the same dinner.
Crabbe seems to have composed it for the occasion, but with the
intention of ultimately weaving it into the poem on which he was then
engaged. A paragraph prefixed to the lines also shows that Crabbe had a
further object in view. "The Founder of this Society having intimated a
hope that, on a plan which he has already communicated to his particular
Friends, its Funds may be sufficiently ample to afford assistance and
relief to learned officiating Clergymen in distress, though they may not
have actually commenced Authors--the Author, in allusion to this hope,
has introduced into a Poem which he is preparing for the Press the
following character of a learned Divine in distress."

Crabbe's lines bearing on the proposed scheme (which seems for a time at
least to have been adopted by the administrators of the Fund) were left
standing when _The Borough_ was published, with, an explanatory note.
They are effective for their purpose, the pathos of them is genuine, and
worthy of attention even in these latter days of the "Queen Victoria
Clergy Fund." The speaker is the curate himself:

"Long may these founts of Charity remain,
And never shrink, but to be filled again;
True! to the Author they are now confined,
To him who gave the treasure of his mind,
His time, his health,--and thankless found mankind: