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d with the everyday concerns of men. But my beloved creatures have minds with which I can better assimilate. Think of you, I must; and of me, I must entreat that you would not be unmindful." Nothing, however, was destined to come of these various flirtations or _tendresses_. The new duties at Trowbridge, with their multiplying calls upon his attention and sympathies, must soon have filled his time and attention when at work in his market town, with its flourishing woollen manufactures. And Crabbe was now to have opened to him new sources of interest in the neighbourhood. His growing reputation soon made him a welcome guest in many houses to which his mere position as vicar of Trowbridge might not have admitted him. Trowbridge was only a score or so of miles from Bath, and there were many noblemen's and gentlemen's seats in the country round. In this same county of Wilts, and not very far away, at his vicarage of Bremhill, was William Lisle Bowles, the graceful poet whose sonnets five-and-twenty years before had first roused to poetic utterance the young Coleridge and Charles Lamb when at Christ's Hospital. Through Bowles, Crabbe was introduced to the noble family at Bowood, where the third Marquis of Lansdowne delighted to welcome those distinguished in literature and the arts. Within these splendid walls Crabbe first made the acquaintance of Rogers, which soon ripened into an intimacy not without effect, I think, upon the remaining efforts of Crabbe as a poet. One immediate result was that Crabbe yielded to Rogers's strong advice to him to visit London, and take his place among the literary society of the day. This visit was paid in the summer of 1817, when Crabbe stayed in London from the middle of June to the end of July. Crabbe's son rightly included in his _Memoir_ several extracts from his father's Diary kept during this visit. They are little more than briefest entries of engagements, but serve to show the new and brilliant life to which the poet was suddenly introduced. He constantly dined and breakfasted with Rogers, where he met and was welcomed by Rogers's friends. His old acquaintance with Fox gave him the _entree_ of Holland House. Thomas Campbell was specially polite to him, and really attracted by him. Crabbe visited the theatres, and was present at the farewell banquet given to John Kemble. Through Rogers and Campbell he was introduced to John Murray of Albemarle Street, who later became his pu
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