It is original, vigorous, and elegant.
The alterations which I have made I do not require him to adopt; for my lines are perhaps not often better than his own: but he may take mine and his own together, and perhaps between them produce something better than either.
He is not to think his copy wantonly defaced: a wet sponge will wash all the red lines away and leave the pages clean.
His dedication will be least liked: it were better to contract it into a short, sprightly address.

I do not doubt of Mr.
Crabbe's success.

I am, Sir, your most humble servant, SAMUEL JOHNSON." Boswell's comment on this incident is as follows:--"The sentiments of Mr.Crabbe's admirable poem as to the false notions of rustic happiness and rustic virtue were quite congenial with Dr.Johnson's own: and he took the trouble not only to suggest slight corrections and variations, but to furnish some lines when he thought he could give the writer's meaning better than in the words of the manuscript." Boswell went on to observe that "the aid given by Johnson to the poem, as to _The Traveller_ and _Deserted Village_ of Goldsmith, were so small as by no means to impair the distinguished merit of the author." There were unfriendly critics, however, in Crabbe's native county who professed to think otherwise, and "whispered that the manuscript had been so _cobbled_ by Burke and Johnson that its author did not know it again when returned to him." On which Crabbe's son rejoins that "if these kind persons survived to read _The Parish Register_ their amiable conjectures must have received a sufficient rebuke." This confident retort is not wholly just.

There can be no doubt that some special mannerisms and defects of Crabbe's later style had been kept in check by the wise revision of his friends.

And again, when after more than twenty years Crabbe produced _The Parish Register_, that poem, as we shall see, had received from Charles James Fox something of the same friendly revision and suggestion as _The Village_ had received from Burke and Johnson.
_The Village_, in quarto, published by J.Dodsley, Pall Mall, appeared in May 1783, and at once attracted attention by novel qualities.