way down to Trowbridge, a friend at Salisbury, at whose
house he rested (Mr. Everett, the banker), seeing that he
carried these bills loosely in his waistcoat pocket, requested
to be allowed to take charge of them for him: but with
equal ill success. 'There was no fear,' he said, 'of his losing
them, and he must show them to his son John.'"

It was matter of common knowledge in the literary world of Crabbe's day
that John Murray did not on this occasion make a very prudent bargain,
and that in fact he lost heavily by his venture. No doubt his offer was
based upon the remarkable success of Crabbe's two preceding poems. _The
Borough_ had passed through six editions in the same number of years,
and the _Tales_ reached a fifth edition within two years of publication.
But for changes in progress in the poetic taste of the time, Murray
might safely have anticipated a continuance of Crabbe's popularity. But
seven years had elapsed since the appearance of the _Tales_, and in
these seven years much had happened. Byron had given to the world one by
one the four cantos of _Childe Harold_, as well as other poems rich in
splendid rhetoric and a lyric versatility far beyond Crabbe's reach.
Wordsworth's two volumes in 1815 contained by far the most important and
representative of his poems, and these were slowly but surely winning
him a public of his own, intellectual and thoughtful if not as yet
numerous. John Keats had made two appearances, in 1817 and 1818, and the
year following the publication of Crabbe's _Tales of the Hall_ was to
add to them the Odes and other poems constituting the priceless volume
of 1820--_Lamia and other Poems_. Again, for the lovers of
fiction--whom, as I have said, Crabbe had attracted quite as strongly as
the lovers of verse--Walter Scott had produced five or six of his finest
novels, and was adding to the circle of his admirers daily. By the side
of this fascinating prose, and still more fascinating metrical