In 1809 Crabbe forwarded a copy of his poems (now reduced by the publisher to the form of two small volumes, and in their fourth edition) to Walter Scott, who acknowledged them and Crabbe’s accompanying letter in a friendly reply, to which reference has already been made.  After mentioning how for more than twenty years he had desired the pleasure of a personal introduction to Crabbe, and how, as a lad of eighteen, he had met with selections from The Village and The Library in The Annual Register, he continues:—­

“You may therefore guess my sincere delight when I saw your poems at a late period assume the rank in the public consideration which they so well deserve.  It was a triumph to my own immature taste to find I had anticipated the applause of the learned and the critical, and I became very desirous to offer my gratulor among the more important plaudits which you have had from every quarter.  I should certainly have availed myself of the freemasonry of authorship (for our trade may claim to be a mystery as well as Abhorson’s) to address to you a copy of a new poetical attempt, which I have now upon the anvil, and I esteem myself particularly obliged to Mr. Hatchard, and to your goodness acting upon his information, for giving me the opportunity of paving the way for such a freedom.  I am too proud of the compliments you honour me with to affect to decline them; and with respect to the comparative view I have of my own labours and yours, I can only assure you that none of my little folks, about the formation of whose tastes and principles I may be supposed naturally solicitous, have ever read any of my own poems—­while yours have been our regular evening’s amusement My eldest girl begins to read well, and enters as well into the humour as into the sentiment of your admirable descriptions of human life.  As for rivalry, I think it has seldom existed among those who know by experience that there are much better things in the world than literary reputation, and that one of the best of those good things is the regard and friendship of those deservedly and generally esteemed for their worth or their talents.  I believe many dilettante authors do cocker themselves up into a great jealousy of anything that interferes with what they are pleased to call their fame:  but I should as soon think of nursing one of my own fingers into a whitlow for my private amusement as encouraging such a feeling.  I am truly sorry to observe you mention bad health:  those who contribute so much to the improvement as well as the delight of society should escape this evil.  I hope, however, that one day your state of health may permit you to view this country.”

This interchange of letters was the beginning of a friendship that was to endure and strengthen through the lives of both poets, for they died in the self-same year.  The “new poetical attempt” that was “on the anvil” must have been The Lady of the Lake, completed and published