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