As Crabbe is practically unknown to the readers of the present day, _Sir Eustace Grey_ will be hardly even a name to them. For it lies, with two or three other noticeable poems, quite out of the familiar track of his narrative verse. In the first place it is in stanzas, and what Browning would have classed as a "Dramatic Lyric." The subject is as follows: The scene "a Madhouse," and the persons a Visitor, a Physician, and a Patient. The visitor has been shown over the establishment, and is on the point of departing weary and depressed at the sight of so much misery, when the physician begs him to stay as they come in sight of the "cell" of a specially interesting patient, Sir Eustace Grey, late of Greyling Hall. Sir Eustace greets them as they approach, plunges at once into monologue, and relates (with occasional warnings from the doctor against over-excitement) the sad story of his misfortunes and consequent loss of reason. He begins with a description of his happier days:-- "Some twenty years, I think, are gone (Time flies, I know not how, away), The sun upon no happier shone Nor prouder man, than Eustace Grey. Ask where you would, and all would say, The man admired and praised of all, By rich and poor, by grave and gay, Was the young lord of Greyling Hall. "Yes! I had youth and rosy health, Was nobly formed, as man might be; For sickness, then, of all my wealth, I never gave a single fee: The ladies fair, the maidens free. Were all accustomed then to say, Who would a handsome figure see, Should look upon Sir Eustace Grey. "My lady I--She was all we love; All praise, to speak her worth, is faint; Her manners show'd the yielding dove, Her morals, the seraphic saint: She never breathed nor looked complaint; No equal upon earth had she: Now, what is this fair thing I paint? Alas! as all that live shall be. "There were two cherub-things beside, A gracious girl, a glorious boy; Yet more to swell my fall-blown pride, To varnish higher my fading joy, Pleasures were ours without alloy, Nay, Paradise,--till my frail Eve Our bliss was tempted to destroy-- Deceived, and fated to deceive. "But I deserved;--for all that time When I was loved, admired, caressed, There was within each secret crime, Unfelt, uncancelled, unconfessed: I never then my God addressed, In grateful praise or humble prayer; And if His Word was not my jest-- (Dread thought!) it never was my care."