, of a pleasant house and garden adjoining his own
property. It then turns out that the generous George has bought the
place as a home for his brother, who will in future act as George's
agent or steward. On approaching and entering the house, Richard finds
his wife and children, who have been privately informed of the
arrangement, already installed, and eagerly waiting to welcome husband
and father to this new and delightful home.

Throughout the development of this story with its incidental narratives,
Crabbe has managed, as in previous poems, to make large use of his own
personal experience. The Hall proves to be a modern gentleman's
residence constructed out of a humbler farmhouse by additions and
alterations in the building and its surroundings, which was precisely
the fate which had befallen Mr. Tovell's old house which had come to the
Crabbe family, and had been parted with by them to one of the Suffolk
county families. "Moated Granges" were common in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Mr. Tovel's house had had a moat, and this too had been a feature of
George's paternal home:

"It was an ancient, venerable Hall,
And once surrounded by a moat and wall;
A part was added by a squire of taste
Who, while unvalued acres ran to waste,
Made spacious rooms, whence he could look about,
And mark improvements as they rose without;
He fill'd the moat, he took the wall away,
He thinn'd the park and bade the view be gay."

In this instance, the squire who had thus altered the property had been
forced to sell it, and George was thus able to return to the old
surroundings of his boyhood. In the third book, _Boys at School_, George
relates some of his recollections, which include the story of a
school-fellow, who having some liking for art but not much talent,
finds his ambitions defeated, and dies of chagrin in consequence. This
was in fact the true story of a brother of Crabbe's wife, Mr. James
Elmy. Later, again, in the work the rector of the parish is described,
and the portrait drawn is obviously that of Crabbe himself, as he
appeared to his Dissenting parishioners at Muston:

"'A moral teacher!' some, contemptuous, cried;
He smiled, but nothing of the fact denied,
Nor, save by his fair life, to charge so strong replied.
Still, though he bade them not on aught rely
That was their own, but all their worth deny,
They called his pure advice his cold morality.

* * * * *