But, the poem being in his desk, he perhaps thought that it might bring in a few pounds to a household which certainly needed them.

"_The Newspaper_, a Poem, by the Rev.George Crabbe, Chaplain to his Grace the Duke of Rutland, printed for J.
Dodsley, in Pall Mall," appeared as a quarto pamphlet (price 2s.) in 1785, with a felicitous motto from Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ on the title-page, and a politic dedication to Lord Thurlow, evincing a gratitude for past favours, and (unexpressed) a lively sense of favours to come.
_The Newspaper_ is, to say truth, of little value, either as throwing light on the journalism of Crabbe's day, or as a step in his poetic career.

The topics are commonplace, such as the strange admixture of news, the interference of the newspaper with more useful reading, and the development of the advertiser's art.

It is written in the fluent and copious vein of mild satire and milder moralising which Crabbe from earliest youth had so assiduously practised.

If a few lines are needed as a sample, the following will show that the methods of literary puffing are not so original to-day as might be supposed.