The poem appeared in February 1810, and went through six editions in the next six years.

It does not indeed present an alluring picture of life in the provinces.

It even reminds us of a saying of Tennyson's, that if God made the country, and man made the city, then it was the devil who made the country-town.

To travel through the borough from end to end is to pass through much ignoble scenery, human and other, and under a cloudy heaven, with only rare gleams of sunshine, and patches of blue sky.
These, when they occur, are proportionally welcome.

They include some exquisite descriptions of nature, though with Crabbe it will be noticed that it is always the nature close about his feet, the hedge-row, the meadow, the cottage-garden: as his son has noted, his outlook never extends to the landscape beyond.
In the respects just mentioned, the qualities exhibited in the new poem have been noticed before in _The Village_ and _The Parish Register_.