approach to despair as his healthy nature allowed. His distress was now
extreme; he was incurring debts with little hope of paying them, and
creditors wore pressing. Forty years later he told Walter Scott and
Lockhart how "during many months when he was toiling in early life in
London he hardly over tasted butcher-meat except on a Sunday, when he
dined usually with a tradesman's family, and thought their leg of
mutton, baked in the pan, the perfection of luxury." And it was only
after some more weary months, when at last "want stared him in the face,
and a gaol seemed the only immediate refuge for his head," that he
resolved, as a last resort, to lay his case once more before some public
man of eminence and character. "Impelled" (to use his own words) "by
some propitious influence, he fixed in some happy moment upon Edmund
Burke--one of the first of Englishmen, and in the capacity and energy of
his mind, one of the greatest of human beings."

It was in one of the early months of 1781 (the exact date seems to be
undiscoverable) that Crabbe addressed his letter, with specimens of his
poetry, to Burke at his London residence. The letter has been preserved,
and runs as follows:--

"Sir,--I am sensible that I need even your talents to
apologise for the freedom I now take; but I have a plea
which, however simply urged, will, with, a mind like yours,
sir, procure me pardon. I am one of those outcasts on the
world who are without a friend, without employment, and
without bread.

"Pardon me a short preface. I had a partial father who
gave me a better education than his broken fortune would
have allowed; and a better than was necessary, as he could