But although living, as the Diary shows, in daily intercourse with the literary and artistic world, tasting delights which were absolutely new to him, Crabbe never forgot either his humble friends in Wiltshire, or the claims of his own art.  He kept in touch with Trowbridge, where his son John was in charge, and sends instructions from time to time as to poor pensioners and others who were not to be neglected in the weekly ministrations.  At the same time, he seems rarely to have omitted the self-imposed task of adding daily to the pile of manuscript on which he was at work—­the collection of stories to be subsequently issued as Tales of the Hall.  Crabbe had resolved, in the face of whatever distractions, to write if possible a fixed amount every day.  More than once in the Diary occur such entries as:  “My thirty lines done; but not well, I fear.”  “Thirty lines to-day, but not yesterday—­must work up.”  This anticipation of a method made famous later in the century by Anthony Trollope may account (as also in Trollope’s case) for certain marked inequalities in the merit of the work thus turned out.  At odd times and in odd places were these verses sometimes composed.  On a certain Sunday morning in July 1817, after going to church at St. James’s, Piccadilly (or was it the Chapel Royal?), Crabbe wandered eastward and found inspiration in the most unexpected quarter:  “Write some lines in the solitude of Somerset House, not fifty yards from the Thames on one side, and the Strand on the other; but as quiet as the sands of Arabia.  I am not quite in good humour with this day; but, happily, I cannot say why.”

The last mysterious sentence is one of many scattered through, the Diary, which, aided by dashes and omission-marks by the editorial son, point to certain sentimentalisms in which Crabbe was still indulging, even in the vortex of fashionable gaieties.  We gather throughout that the ladies he met interested him quite as much, or even more, than the distinguished men of letters, and there are allusions besides to other charmers at a distance.  The following entry immediately precedes that of the Sunday just quoted:—­

“14th.—­Some more intimate conversation this morning with Mr. and Mrs. Moore.  They mean to go to Trowbridge.  He is going to Paris, but will not stay long.  Mrs. Spencer’s album.  Agree to dine at Curzon Street.  A welcome letter from ——.  This makes the day more cheerful.  Suppose it were so.  Well, ’tis not!  Go to Mr. Rogers, and take a farewell visit to Highbury.  Miss Rogers.  Promise to go when ——.  Return early.  Dine there, and purpose to see Mr. Moore and Mr. Rogers in the morning when they set out for Calais.”

On the whole, however, Crabbe may have found, when these fascinating experiences were over, that there had been safety in a multitude.  For he seems to have been equally charmed with Rogers’s sister, and William Spencer’s daughter, and the Countess of Bessborough, and a certain Mrs. Wilson,—­and, like Miss Snevellicci’s papa, to have “loved them every one.”