On that occasion Thurlow had simply replied, in regard to the poems which Crabbe had enclosed, "that his avocations did not leave him leisure to read verses." To this Crabbe had been so unwise as to reply that it was one of a Lord Chancellor's functions to relieve merit in distress.

But the good-natured Chancellor had not resented the impertinence, and now hearing afresh from Burke of his old petitioner, invited Crabbe to breakfast, and made him a generous apology.

"The first poem you sent me, Sir," he said, "I ought to have noticed,--and I heartily forgive the second." At parting, Thurlow pressed a sealed packet containing a hundred pounds into Crabbe's hand, and assured him of further help when Crabbe should have taken Holy Orders.
For already, as the result of Burke's unceasing interest in his new friend, Crabbe's future calling had been decided.

In the course of conversations at Beaconsfield Burke had discovered that his tastes and gifts pointed much more clearly towards divinity than to medicine.

His special training for the office of a clergyman was of course deficient.
He probably had no Greek, but he had mastered enough of Latin to read and quote the Latin poets.