appealing on this occasion to his hoped-for patron both in prose and
verse--

"Ah! Shelburne, blest with all that's good or great,
T' adorn a rich or save a sinking state,
If public Ills engross not all thy care,
Let private Woe assail a patriot's ear,
Pity confined, but not less warm, impart,
And unresisted win thy noble heart"--

with much more in the same vein of innocent flattery. But once again
Crabbe was doomed to disappointment. He had already, it would seem,
appealed to Lord Chancellor Thurlow, with no better success. Crabbe felt
these successive repulses very keenly, but it is not necessary to tax
North, Shelburne, and Thurlow with exceptional hardness of heart. London
was as full of needy literary adventurers as it had been in the days of
_The Dunciad_, and men holding the position of these ministers and
ex-ministers were probably receiving similar applications every week of
their lives.

During three days in June, Crabbe's attention is diverted from his own
distresses by the Lord George Gordon Riots, of which his journal from
June 8th contains some interesting particulars. He was himself an
eye-witness of some of the most disgraceful excesses of the mob, the
burning of the governor of Newgate's house, and the setting at liberty
of the prisoners. He also saw Lord George himself, "a lively-looking
young man in appearance," drawn in his coach by the mob towards the
residence of Alderman Bull, "bowing as he passed along."

At this point the diary ends, or in any case the concluding portion was