poem on his own account, but the publisher failed. Crabbe's money was now exhausted, and he applied to Lord North for assistance, but in vain: he then addressed verses to Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who replied that "his avocations did not leave him leisure to read verses." He sold his clothes and his books, and pawned his watch and his surgical instruments. His one coat was torn, but he mended it himself. He was reduced at last to eightpence; but the brave man never despaired. He had a strong sense of religion, and was deeply attached to one who became his wife. His faith alone held him up, and kept him out of degradation.

At last, and not until he had been threatened with arrest, he wrote a letter* to Burke, which he himself left at the statesman's house in Charles-street. This letter is a beautiful piece of composition, simple, dignified, and pathetic: it contains this passage: "In April last, I came to London with three pounds, and flattered myself this would be sufficient to supply me with the common necessaries of life till my abilities should procure me more; of these I had the highest opinion, and a poetical fancy contributed to my delusion." He also used in the letter the words: "Hearing that he was a good man, and presuming to think a great one," he applied in this emergency. Some years after, Crabbe told Mr. Lockhart that the night after he delivered his letter at Mr. Burke's door, he walked Westminster Bridge backwards and forwards until daylight.

Burke immediately received Crabbe into his own house and treated him with generous hospitality. He looked at his compositions, and selecting "The Library," and "The Village, suggested in them many alterations, which Crabbe assented to, and then took the poems to Dodsley, who published "The Library."

Meanwhile, Burke assisted the poet with money, and gave him a room in his house at Beaconsfield, where he was treated as one of the family. He also introduced him to Fox, Sir

* This letter has not been found among Mr. Burke's papers, and is therefore not printed in his Correspondence; but it will be found in the Poet's life by his son.

Joshua Reynolds, and other distinguished friends, and ad vised him to think of entering the Church; he was admitted to deacon's orders in 1781; he was ordained in the following year, and shortly after he obtained, through Burke's influence, the situation of domestic chaplain to the Duke of Rutland, at Belvoir Castle. "The Village," revised by Dr. Johnson, appeared in 1783. Crabbe's reputation was now established; and thus the poor author, whose worldly means were reduced to eightpence, in 1780, through the kindly aid of Burke, with scanty means himself, Crabbe so rose in public estimation as to sell the copyright of his poems, in 1807, for three thousand pounds. This noble conduct towards the poor poet is indeed a brilliant chapter in Burke's history.

It should be added that Lord Thurlow apologized for his repulse of Crabbe, and gave him a hundred-pound note; and subsequently presented him with two small livings then in his gift, telling him, at the same time, that he was as like Parson Adams as twelve to a dozen.

The author of a volume of Pen and Ink Sketches, published in 1847, relates that he was introduced to Crabbe at a conversazione at the Beccles Philosophical Institution. The poet was seated in Cowper's arm-chair, the same which the Bard of Olney occupied at Mrs. Unwin's. "Pleased to see you, my young friend; very pleased to see you," said Crabbe to the author of the Sketches; and after a little while he pointed to the fine portrait of Burke by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which hung near him, and said: "Very like, very like indeed. I was in Sir Joshua's study when Burke sat for it. Ah! there was a man! If ever you come to Trowbridge," he added, "you must call at the Vicarage, and I'll show you a sketch of Burke, taken at Westminster Hall, when he made his great speech in the Warren Hastings case. Edmund left it to me; it is only a rude pencil drawing, but it gives more of the orator than that picture does."

THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND.

Burke greatly offended his Bristol constituents by his support of Sir George Savile's bill for the Redress of the Roman Catholics from severe penal laws in force against that body. The bill was carried almost unanimously in both Houses of Parliament. A present of 300 guineas, to be followed by 200 more, from a body of Roman Catholics, was offered to Burke in proof of their sense of his exertions; but he declined the gift. It was then proposed to erect a statue of him in Dublin, but this idea was dropped; "and," says Mr. Prior, "the only tributes known to the writer are a picture in the examination theatre of Trinity College, and a bust in the library."

Mr. Burke, from the first, did not encourage the idea of the statue; and about a year after, when his popularity in Ireland had somewhat waned, he declared that he was sincerely glad that the statue had never been set up, saying: "Such honours belong exclusively to the tomb-the natural and only period of human inconstancy, with regard either to desert or to opinion; for they are the very same hands which erect, that very frequently (and sometimes with reason enough) pluck down the statue. Had such an unmerited compliment been paid to me two years ago, the fragments of the piece might at this hour have the advantage of seeing actual service, while they were moving, according to the law of projectiles, to the windows of the Attorney-General, or my old friend Monk Mason."

BURKE'S EULOGIUM ON JOHN HOWARD.

It was almost immediately after the second series of results of Howard's prison tours had appeared, that Burke, in addressing his constituents at Bristol, and enlarging on the disgraceful system of imprisonment for debt, paid this eloquent tribute to the great Philanthropist :

"I cannot name Mr. Howard without remarking that his labours have done much to open the eyes and hearts of man

kind. He has visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art; not to collect medals or collate manuscripts; but to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain, to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original, and it is as full of genius as it is full of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery, a circumnavigation of charity. Already the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country; I hope he will anticipate his final reward by seeing all its effects fully realized in his own. He will receive, not by retail, but in gross, the reward of those who visit the prisoner; and he has so forestalled and monopolized this branch of charity, that there will be, I trust, little room to merit by such acts of benevolence hereafter."

BURKE AND THE ELECTORS OF BRISTOL.

On the dissolution of Parliament, in 1774, Mr. Burke was returned, by the interest of Lord Rockingham, for the borough of Malton; but while in the act of returning thanks to his new constituents, a deputation arrived from Bristol to intimate that he had been nominated for that city, and to carry him thither without delay. By travelling day and night, he arrived at Bristol on the sixth day of the poll; and after a hard contest of twenty-seven days he was returned.

During his canvass he entered a house, where the wife of the owner was reading the Bible. "I have called, madam, to solicit the favour of your husband's vote and interest in the present election. You, I perceive," placing his finger on a passage that caught his eye, "are making your calling and election sure."

The wit of his brother candidate, Mr. Cruger, a merchant

in the American trade, was not so ready. At the conclusion of one of Mr. Burke's eloquent harangues, finding nothing to add with effect, he exclaimed earnestly, in counting-house phrase, "I say ditto to Mr. Burke, I say ditto to Mr. Burke."

On May 6th, 1778, upon the proposition of Lord Nugent, in Parliament, to revise certain oppressive restrictions on the trade of Ireland, Mr. Burke made a most effective speech, and the motion was carried. A number of hostile petitions immediately poured in, and foremost among these was Bristol, whose electors called upon her representatives to support her views. Mr. Burke, however, manfully avowed that to comply with this desire would be to sin against his conscience, against the first principles of justice, and the truest interest of trade itself. "If, from this conduct," said he, "I shall forfeit their (the electors') suffrages at the ensuing election, it will stand on record an example to future representatives of the Commons of England, that one man at least had dared to resist the desires of his constituents when his judgment assured him they were wrong."

Burke then addressed two letters to the electors of Bristol, which may be said to contain the alphabet of free trade; but he failed to convince the Bristolians of the equity or policy of the opening of the trade of Ireland.

At the dissolution of Parliament in 1780, Burke, on Sept. 7, met his constituents, in the Guildhall at Bristol, and there entered his defence of certain points of policy upon

on

which he had disagreed with them. Sir Samuel Romilly describes Burke's speech on this occasion, as "perhaps the finest piece of oratory in our language." He did not stand there accused of venality, or of neglect of duty, or to gratify anger or revenge, oppressing any man. "No," said he, "the charges against me are all of one kind—that I have pushed the principles of general justice and benevolence too far; further than a cautious policy would warrant, and further than the opinions of many would go along with me. In every accident that may happen through life-in pain, in sorrow, in depression,

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