To this end he threw up a few tiny _ballons d'essai_--experiments in the manner of some of his popular contemporaries, and printed them in the columns of the _Edinburgh Annual Register_.

One of these was a grim story of village crime called _The Poacher_, and written in avowed imitation of Crabbe.

Scott was earnest in assuring Lockhart that he had written in no spirit of travesty, but only to test whether he would be likely to succeed in narrative verse of the same pattern.

He had adopted Crabbe's metre, and as far as he could compass it, his spirit also.

The result is noteworthy, and shows once again how a really original imagination cannot pour itself into another's mould.