He had sent with his letter specimens of his verse still in manuscript.

Whether Burke had had time to do more than glance at them--for they had been in his hands but a few hours--is uncertain.

But it may well have been that the tone as well as the substance of Crabbe's letter struck the great statesman as something apart from the usual strain of the literary pretender.

During Burke's first years in London, when he himself lived by literature and saw much of the lives and ways of poets and pamphleteers, he must have gained some experience that served him later in good stead.

There was a flavour of truthfulness in Crabbe's story that could hardly be delusive, and a strain of modesty blended with courage that would at once appeal to Burke's generous nature.