A narrative of equal pathos, and once equally celebrated, is that of the village-girl who receives back her sailor-lover from his last voyage, only to watch over his dying hours.
It is in an earlier section (No.ii._The Church_), beginning: "Yes! there are real mourners--I have seen A fair sad girl, mild, suffering, and serene," too long to quote in full, and, as with Crabbe's method generally, not admitting of being fairly represented by extracts.

Then there are sketches of character in quite a different vein, such as the vicar, evidently drawn from life.

He is the good easy man, popular with the ladies for a kind of _fade_ complimentary style in which he excels; the man of "mild benevolence," strongly opposed to every thing new: "Habit with him was all the test of truth: 'It must be right: I've done it from my youth,' Questions he answered in as brief a way: 'It must be wrong--it was of yesterday.'" Feeble good-nature, and selfish unwillingness to disturb any existing habits or conventions, make up his character: "In him his flock found nothing to condemn; Him sectaries liked--he never troubled them: No trifles failed his yielding mind to please, And all his passions sunk in early ease; Nor one so old has left this world of sin, More like the being that he entered in." An excellent companion sketch to that of the dilettante vicar is provided in that of the poor curate--the scholar, gentleman, and devout Christian, struggling against abject poverty to support his large family.

The picture drawn by Crabbe has a separate and interesting origin.

A year before the appearance of _The Borough_, one of the managers of the Literary Fund, an institution then of some twenty years' standing, and as yet without its charter, applied to Crabbe for a copy of verses that might be appropriate for recitation at the annual dinner of the Society, held at the Freemasons' Tavern.