second letter from Crabbe to Burke. In 1838, Sir Henry Bunbury, in an
appendix to the _Memoir and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer_
(Speaker of the House of Commons, and Shakspearian editor), printed a
collection of miscellaneous letters from distinguished men in the
possession of the Bunbury family. Among these is a letter of Crabbe to
Burke, undated save as to the month, which is given as June 26th. The
year, however, is obviously 1781, for the letter consists of further
details of Crabbe's early life, not supplied in the earlier effusion. At
the date of this second letter, Crabbe had been known to Burke three or
four months. During that time Crabbe had been constantly seeing Burke,
and with his help had been revising for the press the poem of _The
Library_, which was published by Dodsley in this very month, June 1781.
The first impression, accordingly, produced on us by the letter, is one
of surprise that after so long a period of intimate association with
Burke, Crabbe should still be writing in a tone of profound anxiety and
discouragement as to his future prospects. According to the son's
account of the situation, when Crabbe left Burke's house after their
first meeting, "he was, in the common phrase, 'a made man'--from that
hour." That short interview "entirely, and for ever, changed the nature
of his worldly fortunes." This, in a sense, was undoubtedly true, though
not perhaps as the writer meant. It is clear from the letter first
printed by Sir Henry Bunbury, that up to the end of June 1781, Crabbe's
future occupation in life was still unfixed, and that he was full of
misgivings as to the means of earning a livelihood.

The letter is of great interest in many respects, but is too long to
print as a whole in the text[1]. It throws light upon the blank space in
Crabbe's history just now referred to. It tells the story of a period of
humiliation and distress, concerning which it is easy to understand that
even in the days of his fame and prosperity Crabbe may well have