Note 85 — II. THE BABY’S DEBUT. [5a]

The Rev. George Crabbe.—The writer’s first interview with this poet, who may be designated Pope in worsted stockings, took place at William Spencer’s villa at Petersham, close to what that gentleman called his gold-fish pond, though it was scarcely three feet in diameter, throwing up a jet d’eau like a thread. The venerable bard, seizing both the hands of his satirist exclaimed with a good-humoured laugh, “Ah! my old enemy, how do you do?” In the course of conversation, he expressed great astonishment at his popularity in London; adding, “In my own village they think nothing of me.” The subject happening to be the inroads of time upon beauty, the writer quoted the following lines:—