Crabbe's lines bearing on the proposed scheme (which seems for a time at least to have been adopted by the administrators of the Fund) were left standing when _The Borough_ was published, with, an explanatory note. They are effective for their purpose, the pathos of them is genuine, and worthy of attention even in these latter days of the "Queen Victoria Clergy Fund." The speaker is the curate himself: "Long may these founts of Charity remain, And never shrink, but to be filled again; True! to the Author they are now confined, To him who gave the treasure of his mind, His time, his health,--and thankless found mankind: But there is hope that from these founts may flow A side-way stream, and equal good bestow; Good that may reach us, whom the day's distress Keeps from the fame and perils of the Press; Whom Study beckons from the Ills of Life, And they from Study; melancholy strife! Who then can say, but bounty now so free, And so diffused, may find its way to me? Yes! I may see my decent table yet Cheered with the meal that adds not to my debt; May talk of those to whom so much we owe, And guess their names whom yet we may not know; Blest, we shall say, are those who thus can give, And next, who thus upon the bounty live; Then shall I close with thanks my humble meal, And feel so well--Oh! God! how shall I feel!" Crabbe is known to most readers to-day by the delightful parody of his style in the _Rejected Addresses,_ which appeared in the autumn of 1812, and it was certainly on _The Borough_ that James Smith based his imitation. We all remember the incident of Pat Jennings's adventure in the gallery of the theatre. The manner of the narrative is borrowed from Crabbe's lighter and more colloquial style. Every little foible of the poet, when in this vein, is copied with great skill. The superfluity of information, as in the case of-- "John Richard William Alexander Dwyer," whose only place in the narrative is that he preceded Pat Jennings's father in the situation as "Footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire"; or again in the detail that, "Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy Up as a corn-cutter--a safe employ" (a perfect Crabbian couplet), is imitated throughout, Crabbe's habit of frequent verbal antithesis, and even of something like punning, is exactly caught in such a couplet as: "Big-worded bullies who by quarrels live-- Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give." Much of the parody, no doubt, exhibits the fanciful humour of the brothers Smith, rather than of Crabbe, as is the case with many parodies. Of course there are couplets here and there in Crabbe's narratives which justify the burlesque. We have: "What is the truth? Old Jacob married thrice; He dealt in coals, and avarice was his vice," or the lines which the parodists themselves quote in their justification,