"With awe, around these silent walks I tread; These are the lasting mansions of the dead: 'The dead!' methinks a thousand tongues reply; 'These are the tombs of such as cannot die! Crowned with eternal fame, they sit sublime, And laugh at all the little strife of Time'" CHAPTER III FRIENDSHIP WITH BURKE (1781-1783) Thus far I have followed the guidance of Crabbe's son and biographer, but there is much that is confused and incomplete in his narrative. The story of Crabbe's life, as told by the son, leaves us in much doubt as to the order of events in 1780-1781. The memorable letter to Burke was, as we have seen, without a date. The omission is not strange, for the letter was written by Crabbe in great anguish of mind, and was left by his own hand at Burke's door. The son, though he evidently obtained from his father most of the information he was afterwards to use, never extracted this date from him. He tells us that up to the time of his undertaking the Biography, he did not even know that the original of the letter was in existence. He also tells us that until he and his brother saw the letter they had little idea of the extreme poverty and anxiety which their father had experienced during his time in London. Obviously Crabbe himself had been reticent on the subject even with his own family. From the midsummer of 1780, when the "Journal to Mira" comes to an end, to the February or March of the following year, there is a blank in the Biography which the son was unable to fill. At the time the fragment of Diary closes, Crabbe was apparently at the very end of his resources. He had pawned all his personal property, his books and his surgical implements, and was still in debt. He had begged assistance from many of the leading statesmen of the hour without success. How did he contrive to exist between June 1780 and the early months of 1781?