A still greater hero of Benbow’s was Captain Dowling, who was ready to drink against any rival:
“Man after man they from the trial shrank,
And Dowling ever was the last that drank.”
But we must leave the old reprobate, and go on to a far subtler delineation of character. Sir Denys Brand, to use Crabbe’s own words, was “maybe too highly placed for an author, who seldom ventures above middle life to delineate.” It is admitted that Sir Denys was a real person, and the biographer withholds his name out of consideration for his family.[10] It must be remembered that Crabbe’s nature was both proud and sensitive, and the scathing satire he expends on Sir Denys was probably provoked by some real or fancied slight.
He is one of the trustees of the almshouses. He took the office—
“True ’twas beneath him; but to do men good
Was motive never by his heart withstood.”
Sir Denys is an aristocratic prig of the first water, and Crabbe hated prigs. He is one of those men who can be, with a certain amount of truth, described as possessing all the virtues:
“In him all merits were decreed to meet,
Sincere though cautious, frank and yet discreet,