A fresh bereavement in his family had made Crabbe additionally anxious for change of scene and associations for his wife.  In 1796, another child died—­their third son, Edmund—­in his sixth year.  Two children, out of a family of seven, alone remained; and this final blow proved more than the poor mother could bear uninjured.  From this time dated “a nervous disorder,” which indeed meant a gradual decay of mental power, from which she never recovered; and Crabbe, an ever-devoted husband, tended her with exemplary care till her death in 1813.  Southey, writing about Crabbe to his friend, Neville White, in 1808, adds:  “It was not long before his wife became deranged, and when all this was told me by one who knew him well, five years ago, he was still almost confined in his own house, anxiously waiting upon this wife in her long and hopeless malady.  A sad history!  It is no wonder that he gives so melancholy a picture of human life.”

Save for Mrs. Crabbe’s broken health and increasing melancholy, the four years at Glemham were among the most peaceful and happiest of Crabbe’s life.  His son grows eloquent over the elegance of the house and the natural beauties of its situation.  “A small well-wooded park occupied the whole mouth of the glen, whence, doubtless, the name of the village was derived.  In the lowest ground stood the commodious mansion; the approach wound down through a plantation on the eminence in front.  The opposite hill rose at the back of it, rich and varied with trees and shrubs scattered irregularly; under this southern hill ran a brook, and on the banks above it were spots of great natural beauty, crowned by whitethorn and oak.  Here the purple scented violet perfumed the air, and in one place coloured the ground.  On the left of the front in the narrower portion of the glen was the village; on the right, a confined view of richly wooded fields.  In fact, the whole parish and neighbourhood resemble a combination of groves, interspersed with fields cultivated like gardens, and intersected with those green dry lanes which tempt the walker in all weathers, especially in the evenings, when in the short grass of the dry sandy banks lies every few yards a glowworm, and the nightingales are pouring forth their melody in every direction.”

It was not, therefore, for lack of acquaintance with the more idyllic side of English country-life that Crabbe, when he once more addressed the public in verse, turned to the less sunny memories of his youth for inspiration.  It was not till some years after the appearance of The Parish Register and The Borough that the pleasant paths of inland Suffolk and of the Vale of Belvoir formed the background to his studies in human character.