Another of Jane’s favourite poets was Crabbe. Crabbe and Cowper are both rather heavy reading, and of both it may be said that their poetry is not poetical, but they are honestly seeking after truth and thus they attracted Jane Austen. They were amongst the earliest of the natural school which used the method of realism. Crabbe had a bitter struggle to obtain a hearing, but his struggle was over before 1796. Burke had taken him up, and in those days much depended on a patron. In 1781 he had published _The Library_, two years after _The Village_, and two years later again came _The Newspaper_, and then he did not bring out anything more until 1807. It is, of course, very difficult to give any picture of contemporary literature in Jane Austen’s time without degenerating into mere strings of names. The fact that she herself came in contact with no one of the first rank in literature prevents any of the characters from being woven into her life. The books she mentions as having read are a mere drop in the ocean compared with the books which came out in her time, and which she probably, in some cases almost certainly, read. It was a brilliant age as regards writing. Perhaps the best way to give some general idea of those writers not already mentioned will be to divide the time into three sections; and, without any attempt at being exhaustive, to mention generally the leading names among the writers who lived on into her epoch, but whose best work had been published before her time; those who actually were contemporary in the sense that their books, by which their names are known, were published in her lifetime; and those whose names had not begun to be known when she died, though the owners were born in her epoch. First, then, those whose work was done; foremost among these was Johnson, who has already been mentioned. Walpole was considerably past middle-age at her birth, and died in 1797; Wesley’s collected _Works_ came out in 1771, and he died in 1791; Adam Smith preceded him by a year.