Crabbe
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Crabbe. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
krab, George (1754-1832), an English poet. He was born at Aldborough, Suffolk. He was educated as a surgeon, but, failing to get a living in his native village, he went up to London. He was befriended by Edmund Burke, and finally turned clergyman. His later years were spent peacefully in the discharge of the duties of his parish at Trowbridge, Wiltshire. He was universally esteemed. His chief writings are The Village, The Parish Register, The Borough, and Tales of the Hall. Crabbe uses the two-rhymed couplet in the greater number of his poems. His style lacks polish and musical rhythm. It is, however, direct and unaffected, and not without dramatic qualities. He describes simple village life with truth and vigor, but shows the trials of the poor in harsher light than does Goldsmith in the Deserted Village. QUOTATIONS. Nor you, ye poor, of lettered scorn complain, To you, the smoothest song is smooth in vain; O'ercome by labour, and bowed down by time, Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread, By winding myrtles round your ruin'd shed? Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower, Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour? --The Village. Books cannot always please, however good; Minds are not ever craving for their food. But't was a maxim he had often tried, That right was right, and there he would abide. He tried the luxury of doing good. SAID OF CRABBE. A Pope in worsted stockings.--Smith. Nature's sternest painter, yet the best.--Byron. An admirable foil to the insincerity of the fashionable pastoral.--Courthope.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
GEORGE (krab), an English poet; born at Aldborough, Suffolk, in 1754. Having failed as a surgeon and apothecary in his native village he went to London to engage in literary work. Burke helped him to publish his poem "The Library," and after soon he entered the Church. He was appointed domestic chaplin to the Duke of Rutland, and afterward obtained ample preferment. In 1783 appeared the "Village," which was followed two years afterward by the "The Parish Register" "Newspaper." peared in 1807. The "Borough" apin 1810 and was peared followed in 1812 by "Tales in Verse," and in 1819 by "Tales of the Hall." The latter years of Crabbe's life were spent in the peaceful discharge of his professional duties at Trowbridge in Wiltshire. His poems A CRAB A. Common Crab. are all characterized by homely truthfulness, simplicity, and pathos. He died in Trowbridge, Wilts, in 1832. CRAB SPIDER or MATOUTOU, a spider that belongs to the typical genus of the family Mygalidæ, which may be at once known by the shape of its mandibles and the terrific claws which proceed from them. In the greater of spiders the claws are set horizontally, Fryeburg, Me., in 1850. He graduated but in the Mygalidæ they are bent downward, and strike the prey much as a lion clutches at his victim with his curved talons. The great crab spider preys on young birds and other small vertebrates.