After waiting a reasonable time, the young poet repairs to London and seeks to obtain an interview with his Patron.

After many unsuccessful trials, and rebuffs at the door from the servants, a letter is at last sent out to him from their master, coolly advising him to abjure all dreams of a literary life and offering him a humble post in the Custom House.

The young man, in bitterness of heart, tries the work for a short time; and then, his health and spirits having utterly failed, he returns to his parents' home to die, the father thanking God, as he moves away from his son's grave, that no other of his children has tastes and talents above his position: "'There lies my Boy,' he cried, 'of care bereft, And, Heaven be praised, I've not a genius left: No one among ye, sons! is doomed to live On high-raised hopes of what the Great may give.'" Crabbe, who is nothing if not incisive in the drawing of his moral, and lays on his colours with no sparing hand, represents the heartless Patron and his family as hearing the sad tidings with quite amazing _sang-froid_: "Meantime the news through various channels spread, The youth, once favour'd with such praise, was dead: 'Emma,' the Lady cried, 'my words attend, Your siren-smiles have kill'd your humble friend; The hope you raised can now delude no more, Nor charms, that once inspired, can now restore' Faint was the flush of anger and of shame, That o'er the cheek of conscious beauty came: 'You censure not,' said she, 'the sun's bright rays, When fools imprudent dare the dangerous gaze; And should a stripling look till he were blind, You would not justly call the light unkind; But is he dead?
and am I to suppose The power of poison in such looks as those ?' She spoke, and pointing to the mirror, cast A pleased gay glance, and curtsied as she pass'd.
My Lord, to whom the poet's fate was told, Was much affected, for a man so cold: 'Dead!' said his lordship, 'run distracted, mad! Upon my soul I'm sorry for the lad; And now, no doubt, th' obliging world will say That my harsh usage help'd him on his way: What! I suppose, I should have nursed his muse, And with champagne have brighten'd up his views, Then had he made me famed my whole life long, And stunn'd my ears with gratitude and song.
Still should the father hear that I regret Our joint misfortune--Yes! I'll not forget.'" The story, though it has no precise prototype in Crabbe's own history, is clearly the fruit of his experience of life at Belvoir Castle, combined with the sad recollection of his sufferings when only a few years before he, a young man with the consciousness of talent, was rolling butter-tubs on Slaughden Quay.
Much of the Tale is admirably and forcibly written, but again it may be said that it is powerful fiction rather than poetry--and indeed into such matters poetry can hardly enter.

It displays the fine observation of Miss Austen, clothed in effective couplets of the school of Johnson and Churchill.

Yet every now and then the true poet comes to the surface.