Some of these reach the highest level of Crabbe's previous studies in the same kind, and it was to these that the new work was mainly to owe its success.

Despite of frequent defects of workmanship, they cling to the memory through their truth and intensity, though to many a reader to-day such, episodes may be chiefly known to exist through a parenthesis in one of Macaulay's _Essays_, where he speaks of "that pathetic passage in Crabbe's _Borough_ which has made many a rough and cynical reader cry like a child." The passage referred to is the once-famous description of the condemned Felon in the "Letter" on _Prisons_.

Macaulay had, as we know, his "heightened way of putting things," but the narrative which he cites, as foil to one of Robert Montgomery's borrowings, deserves the praise.

It shows Crabbe's descriptive power at its best, and his rare power and insight into the workings of the heart and mind.

He has to trace the sequence of thoughts and feelings in the condemned criminal during the days between his sentence and its execution; the dreams of happier days that haunt his pillow--days when he wandered with his sweetheart or his sister through their village meadows:-- "Yes! all are with him now, and all the while Life's early prospects and his Fanny's smile.
Then come his sister and his village friend, And he will now the sweetest moments spend Life has to yield,--No! never will he find Again on earth such pleasure in his mind He goes through shrubby walks these friends among, Love in their looks and honour on the tongue.
Nay, there's a charm beyond what nature shows, The bloom is softer and more sweetly glows; Pierced by no crime and urged by no desire For more than true and honest hearts require, They feel the calm delight, and thus proceed Through the green lane,--then linger in the mead,-- Stray o'er the heath in all its purple bloom,-- And pluck the blossom where the wild bees hum; Then through the broomy bound with ease they pass, And press the sandy sheep-walk's slender grass, Whore dwarfish flowers among the grass are spread, And the lamb browses by the linnet's bed; Then 'cross the bounding brook they make their way O'er its rough bridge--'and there behold the bay!-- The ocean smiling to the fervid sun-- The waves that faintly fall and slowly run-- The ships at distance and the boats at hand, And now they walk upon the sea-side sand, Counting the number, and what kind they be, Ships softly sinking in the sleepy sea: Now arm in arm, now parted, they behold The glittering waters on the shingles rolled; The timid girls, half dreading their design, Dip the small foot in the retarded brine, And search for crimson weeds, which spreading flow, Or lie like pictures on the sand below: With all those bright red pebbles, that the sun, Through the small waves so softly shines upon; And those live lucid jellies which the eye Delights to trace as they swim glittering by: Pearl-shells and rubied star-fish they admire, And will arrange above the parlour fire,-- Tokens of bliss!--'Oh! horrible! a wave Roars as it rises--save me, Edward! save!' She cries:--Alas! the watchman on his way Calls and lets in--truth, terror, and the day!" Allowing for a certain melodramatic climax here led up to, we cannot deny the impressiveness of this picture--the first-hand quality of its observation, and an eye for beauty, which his critics are rarely disposed to allow to Crabbe.