The letter is of great interest in many respects, but is too long to print as a whole in the text[1].  It throws light upon the blank space in Crabbe’s history just now referred to.  It tells the story of a period of humiliation and distress, concerning which it is easy to understand that even in the days of his fame and prosperity Crabbe may well have refrained from speaking with his children.  After relating in full his early struggles as an imperfectly qualified country doctor, and his subsequent fortunes in London up to the day of his appeal to Burke, Crabbe proceeds—­“It will perhaps be asked how I could live near twelve months a stranger in London; and coming without money, it is not to be supposed I was immediately credited.  It is not; my support arose from another source.  In the very early part of my life I contracted some acquaintance, which afterwards became a serious connection, with the niece of a Suffolk gentleman of large fortune.  Her mother lives with her three daughters at Beccles; her income is but the interest of fifteen hundred pounds, which at her decease is to be divided betwixt her children.  The brother makes her annual income about a hundred pounds; he is a rigid economist, and though I have the pleasure of his approbation, I have not the good fortune to obtain more, nor from a prudent man could I perhaps expect so much.  But from the family at Beccles I have every mark of their attention, and every proof of their disinterested regard.  They have from time to time supplied me with such sums as they could possibly spare, and that they have not done more arose from my concealing the severity of my situation, for I would not involve in my errors or misfortunes a very generous and very happy family by which I am received with unaffected sincerity, and where I am treated as a son by a mother who can have no prudential reason to rejoice that her daughter has formed such a connection.  It is this family I lately visited, and by which I am pressed to return, for they know the necessity there is for me to live with the utmost frugality, and hopeless of my succeeding in town, they invite me to partake of their little fortune, and as I cannot mend my prospects, to avoid making them worse.”  The letter ends with an earnest appeal to Burke to help him to any honest occupation that may enable him to live without being a burden on the slender resources of Miss Elmy’s family.  Crabbe is full of gratitude for all that Burke has thus far done for him.  He has helped him to complete and publish his poem, but Crabbe is evidently aware that poetry does not mean a livelihood, and that his future is as dark as ever.  The letter is dated from Crabbe’s old lodging with the Vickerys in Bishopsgate Street, and he had been lately staying with the Elmys at Beccles.  He was not therefore as yet a visitor under Burke’s roof.  This was yet to come, with all the happy results that were to follow.  It may still seem strange that all these details remained to be told to Burke four months