Crabbe was inducted to the living of Trowbridge on the 3rd of June 1814, and preached his first sermon two days later.  His two sons followed him, as soon as their existing engagements allowed them to leave Leicestershire.  The younger, John, who married in 1816, became his father’s curate, and the elder, who married a year later, became curate at Pucklechurch, not many miles distant.  As Crabbe’s old cheerfulness gradually returned he found much congenial society in the better educated classes about him.  His reputation as a poet was daily spreading.  The Tales passed from edition to edition, and brought him many admirers and sympathisers.  The “busy, populous clothing town,” as he described Trowbridge to a friend, provided him with intelligent neighbours of a class different from any he had yet been thrown with.  And yet once more, as his son has to admit, he failed to secure the allegiance of the church-going parishioners.  His immediate predecessor, a curate in charge, had been one of those in whom a more passionate missionary zeal had been stirred by the Methodist movement—­“endeared to the more serious inhabitants by warm zeal and a powerful talent for preaching extempore.”  The parishioners had made urgent appeal to the noble patron to appoint this man to the benefice, and the Duke’s disregard of their petition had produced much bitterness in the parish.  Then, again, in Crabbe there was a “lay” element, which had probably not been found in his predecessor, and he might occasionally be seen “at a concert, a ball, or even a play.”  And finally, not long after his arrival, he took the unpopular side in an election for the representation of the county.  The candidate he supported was strongly opposed by the “manufacturing interest,” and Crabbe became the object of intense dislike at the time of the election, so much so that a violent mob attempted to prevent his leaving his house to go to the poll.  However, Crabbe showed the utmost courage during the excitement, and his other fine qualities of sterling worth and kindness of heart ultimately made their way; and in the sixteen years that followed, Crabbe took still firmer hold of the affection of the worthier part of his parishioners.

Crabbe’s son thought good to devote several pages of his Memoir to the question why his father, having now no unmarried son to be his companion, should not have taken such a sensible step as to marry again.  For the old man, if he deserved to be so called at the age of sixty-two, was still very susceptible to the charms of female society, and indeed not wholly free from the habit of philandering—­a habit which occasionally “inspired feelings of no ordinary warmth” in the fair objects of “his vain devotion.”  One such incident all but ended in a permanent engagement.  A MS. quotation from the poet’s Diary, copied in the margin of FitzGerald’s volume, may possibly refer to this occasion.  Under date of September 22 occurs this entry:  “Sidmouth.  Miss