“Said the good man, ‘and then rejoice therefore: ’Tis good to tremble: prospects then are fair, When the lost soul is plunged in just despair. Once thou wert simply honest, just and pure, Whole as thou thought’st, and never wish’d a cure: * * * * * ‘What must I do,’ I said, ‘my soul to free?’ ‘Do nothing, man--it will be done for thee.’-- ‘But must I not, my reverend guide, believe?’ ‘If thou art call’d thou wilt the faith receive:’-- ‘But I repent not.’--Angry he replied, ‘If thou art call’d thou need’st naught beside: Attend on us, and if ’tis Heaven’s decree The call will come--if not, ah, woe! for thee.’” Crabbe had very little toleration for spiritual valetudinarians. He liked a good practical Christianity and was a little inclined to class the overscrupulous with the _malades imaginaires_. In “The Gentleman Farmer” we have a cleverly told story of a man of property, a professed atheist and an avowed enemy of priests and doctors. At last he fell ill; and his artful housekeeper, the meek Rebecca, produces a Scotch cousin, Dr. Mollet. He is so successful that Rebecca decides to allow the Rev. Mr. Whisp, a converted ostler, to advise her master. Mollet and Whisp between them point out that it is his duty to marry Rebecca. Then the three batten happily on their victim: “Mollet his body orders, Whisp his soul, And o’er his purse the lady takes control.” Though Crabbe lived in the days of the French Revolution and Tom Paine, infidelity seems to have given him far less trouble than the enthusiasm of his parishioners. In “The Learned Boy” we have the tale of a precocious lad such as our poet detested, a mean little creature, neat and docile at school, to whom much could be taught because he could imitate without reflecting: “He thought not much indeed--but what depends On pains and care, was at his fingers’ ends.” As it was impossible to make such a lad into a farmer like his honest father, he was sent to an office in town and picked up some up-to-date views of the Bible from a brother-clerk. On his return he thus explained his views to his grandmother, much to the dear old lady’s distress: “I myself began To feel disturbed and to my Bible ran; I now am wiser--yet agree in this, The book has things that are not much amiss; It is a fine old work, and I protest I hate to hear it treated as a jest; The book has wisdom in it, if you look Wisely upon it as another book.” The father, overhearing his hopeful son, treats him to a long discourse, driven home with a cartwhip, and concluding: “Teachers men honour, learners they allure; But learners teaching of contempt are sure; Scorn is their certain meed, and smart their only cure.”