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. When they met in
later years at William Spencer's, Crabbe hurried to meet James Smith
with outstretched hand, "Ah! my old enemy, how do you do?" Again,
writing to a friend who had expressed some indignation at the parody,
Crabbe complained only of the preface. "There is a little
ill-nature--and I take the liberty of adding, undeserved ill-nature--in
their prefatory address; but in their versification they have done me
admirably." Here Crabbe shows a slight lack of self-knowledge. For when
to the Letter on _Trades_ the following extenuating postscript is found
necessary, there would seem to be hardly any room for the parodist:

"If I have in this Letter praised the good-humour of a man
confessedly too inattentive to business, and if in the one on
_Amusements_, I have written somewhat sarcastically of 'the
brick-floored parlour which the butcher lets,' be credit given
to me that in the one case I had no intention to apologise for
idleness, nor any design in the other to treat with contempt
the resources of the poor. The good-humour is considered as
the consolation of disappointment, and the room is so mentioned
because the lodger is vain. Most of my readers will
perceive this; but I shall be sorry if by any I am supposed to
make pleas for the vices of men, or treat their wants and
infirmities with derision or with disdain."

After this, Crabbe himself might have admitted that the descent is not