rst year at Parham, Crabbe does not appear to have
undertaken any fixed clerical duties, and this interval of leisure
allowed him to pay a long visit to his sister at Aldeburgh, and here he
placed his two elder boys, George and John, at a dame school. On
returning to Parham, he accepted the office of curate-in-charge at
Sweffling, the rector, Rev. Richard Turner, being resident at his other
living of Great Yarmouth. The curacy of Great Glemham, also within easy
reach, was shortly added. Crabbe was still residing at Parham Lodge, but
the incidents of such residence remained far from pleasant, and, after
four years there, Crabbe joyfully accepted the offer of a good house at
Great Glemham, placed at his disposal by his friend Dudley North. Here
the family remained for a further period of four or five years.

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