Crabbe continued to write moral stories in rhymed couplets.
I have read desultorily the writings of the younger generation.
It may be that among them a more fervid Keats, a more
ethereal Shelley, has already published numbers the world
will willingly remember. I cannot tell. I admire their
polish -- their youth is already so accomplished that it seems
absurd to speak of promise -- I marvel at the felicity of
their style; but with all their copiousness (their vocabulary
suggests that they fingered Roget's
in their
cradles) they say nothing to me: to my mind they know too
much and feel too obviously; I cannot stomach the heartiness
with which they slap me on the back or the emotion with which
they hurl themselves on my bosom; their passion seems to me a
little anaemic and their dreams a trifle dull. I do not like them.
I am on the shelf. I will continue to write moral stories in
rhymed couplets. But I should be thrice a fool if I did it for
aught but my own entertainment.
Chapter III
But all this is by the way.
I was very young when I wrote my first book. By a lucky chance
it excited attention, and various persons sought my acquaintance.
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