"It was praised," writes his son, "in the leading journals; the sale was rapid and extensive; and my father's reputation was by universal consent greatly raised, and permanently established, by this poem," The number of anonymous letters it brought the author, some of gratitude, and some of resentment (for it had laid its finger on many sores in the body-politic), showed how deeply his touch had been felt.

Further publicity for the poem was obtained by Burke, who inserted the description of the Parish Workhouse and the Village Apothecary in _The Annual Register,_ which he controlled.

The same pieces were included a few years later by Vicesimus Knox in that excellent Miscellany _Elegant Extracts_.

And Crabbe was to learn in later life from Walter Scott how, when a youth of eighteen, spending a snowy winter in a lonely country-house, he fell in with the volume of _The Annual Register_ containing the passages from _The Village;_ how deeply they had sunk into his heart; and that (writing then to Crabbe in the year 1809) he could repeat them still from memory.
Edmund Burke's friend, Edward Shackleton, meeting Crabbe at Burke's house soon after the publication of the poem, paid him an elegant tribute.

Goldsmith's, he said, would now be the "deserted" village.
Crabbe modestly disclaimed the compliment, and assuredly with reason Goldsmith's delightful poem will never be deserted.