“His worship ever was a churchman true, He held in scorn the methodistic crew; May God defend the Church and save the King, He’d pray devoutly and divinely sing. Admit that he the holy day would spend As priests approved not, still he was a friend; Much then I blame the preacher as too nice To call such trifles by the name of vice; Hinting, though gently and with cautious speech, Of good example--’tis their trade to preach. * * * * * A weaker man, had he been so reviled, Had left the place--he only swore and smiled.” A still greater hero of Benbow’s was Captain Dowling, who was ready to drink against any rival: “Man after man they from the trial shrank, And Dowling ever was the last that drank.” But we must leave the old reprobate, and go on to a far subtler delineation of character. Sir Denys Brand, to use Crabbe’s own words, was “maybe too highly placed for an author, who seldom ventures above middle life to delineate.” It is admitted that Sir Denys was a real person, and the biographer withholds his name out of consideration for his family.[10] It must be remembered that Crabbe’s nature was both proud and sensitive, and the scathing satire he expends on Sir Denys was probably provoked by some real or fancied slight. He is one of the trustees of the almshouses. He took the office-- “True ’twas beneath him; but to do men good Was motive never by his heart withstood.” Sir Denys is an aristocratic prig of the first water, and Crabbe hated prigs. He is one of those men who can be, with a certain amount of truth, described as possessing all the virtues: “In him all merits were decreed to meet, Sincere though cautious, frank and yet discreet, Just all his dealings, faithful every word, His passions’ master and his temper’s lord.” His benevolence was splendid, and known to all men: “He left to meaner minds the simple deed, By which the houseless rest, the hungry feed; His was a public bounty, vast and grand, ’Twas not in him to work with viewless hand. * * * * * He the first lifeboat plann’d; to him the place Is deep in debt--’twas he revived the race.” Yet nobody liked him-- “’Twould give me joy [says Crabbe] some gracious deed to meet That has not called for glory in the street; Who felt for many, could not always shun, In some soft moment to be kind to one; And yet they tell us, when Sir Denys died, That not a widow in the borough cried.”