Every little foible of the poet, when in this vein, is copied with great skill.

The superfluity of information, as in the case of-- "John Richard William Alexander Dwyer," whose only place in the narrative is that he preceded Pat Jennings's father in the situation as "Footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire"; or again in the detail that, "Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy Up as a corn-cutter--a safe employ" (a perfect Crabbian couplet), is imitated throughout, Crabbe's habit of frequent verbal antithesis, and even of something like punning, is exactly caught in such a couplet as: "Big-worded bullies who by quarrels live-- Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give." Much of the parody, no doubt, exhibits the fanciful humour of the brothers Smith, rather than of Crabbe, as is the case with many parodies.

Of course there are couplets here and there in Crabbe's narratives which justify the burlesque.

We have: "What is the truth?
Old Jacob married thrice; He dealt in coals, and avarice was his vice," or the lines which the parodists themselves quote in their justification, "Something had happened wrong about a Bill Which was not drawn with true mercantile skill, So to amend it I was told to go, And seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co." But lines such as these in fact occur only at long intervals.

Crabbe's couplets are more often pedestrian rather than grotesque.
The poet himself, as the witty brothers relate with some pride, was by no means displeased or offended by the liberty taken.