_The Borough_ did much to spread Crabbe's reputation while he remained,
doing his duty to the best of his ability and knowledge, in the quiet
loneliness of the Vale of Belvoir, but his growing fame lay far outside
the boundaries of his parish. When, a few years later, he visited London
and was received with general welcome by the distinguished world of
literature and the arts, he was much surprised. "In my own village," he
told James Smith, "they think nothing of me." The three years following
the publication of _The Borough_ were specially lonely. He had, indeed,
his two sons, George and John, with him. They had both passed through
Cambridge--one at Trinity and the other at Caius, and were now in holy
orders. Each held a curacy in the near neighbourhood, enabling them to
live under the parental roof. But Mrs. Crabbe's condition was now
increasingly sad, her mind being almost gone. There was no daughter, and
we hear of no other female relative at hand to assist Crabbe in the
constant watching of the patient. This circumstance alone limited his
opportunities of accepting the hospitalities of the neighbourhood,
though with the Welbys and other county families, as well as with the
surrounding clergy, he was a welcome guest.

_The Borough_ appeared in February 1810, and the reviewers were prompt
in their attention. The _Edinburgh_ reviewed the poem in April of the
same year, and the _Quarterly_ followed in October. Jeffrey had already
noticed _The Parish Register_ in 1808. The critic's admiration of Crabbe
had been, and remained to the end, cordial and sincere. But now, in
reviewing the new volume, a note of warning appears. The critic finds
himself obliged to admit that the current objections to Crabbe's
treatment of country life are well founded. "His chief fault," he says,
"is his frequent lapse into disgusting representations." All powerful
and pathetic poetry, Jeffrey admits, abounds in "images of distress,"