Whatever he approved, the reader will readily believe, I have carefully retained: the parts he disliked are totally expunged, and others are substituted, which I hope resemble those more conformable to the taste of so admirable a judge.

Nor can I deny myself the melancholy satisfaction of adding that this poem (and more especially the history of Phoebe Dawson, with some parts of the second book) were the last compositions of their kind that engaged and amused the capacious, the candid, the benevolent mind of this great man." It was, as we have seen, at Dudley North's residence in Suffolk that Crabbe had renewed his acquaintance with Fox, and received from him fresh offers of criticism and advice.

And now the great statesman had passed beyond reach of Crabbe's gratitude.

He had died in the autumn of 1806, at the Duke of Devonshire's, at Chiswick.

His last months wore of great suffering, and the tedium of his latter days was relieved by being read aloud to--the Latin poets taking their turn with Crabbe's pathetic stories of humble life.