wore married in December 1783, in the parish church of
Beccles, where Miss Elmy's mother resided, and a few weeks later took up
their abode in the rooms assigned them at Belvoir Castle.

As Miss Elmy had lived for many years with her uncle and aunt, Mr. and
Mrs. John Tovell, at Parham, and moreover as this rural inland village
played a considerable part in the development of Crabbe's poetical
faculty, it may be well to quote his son's graphic account of the
domestic circumstances of Miss Elmy's relatives. Mr. Tovell was, like
Mr. Hathaway, "a substantial yeoman," for he owned an estate of some
eight hundred a year, to some share of which, as the Tovells had lost
their only child, Miss Elmy would certainly in due course succeed. The
Tovells' house at Parham, which has been long ago pulled down, and
rebuilt as Paritam Lodge, on very different lines, was of ample size,
with its moat, so common a feature of the homestead in the eastern
counties, "rookery, dove-cot, and fish-ponds"; but the surroundings were
those of the ordinary farmhouse, for Mr. Tovell himself cultivated part
of his estate.

"The drawing-room, a corresponding dining-parlour, and a handsome
sleeping apartment upstairs, were all _tabooed_ ground, and made use of
on great and solemn occasions only--such as rent-days, and an occasional
visit with which Mr. Tovell was honoured by a neighbouring peer. At all
other times the family and their visitors lived entirely in the
old-fashioned kitchen along with the servants. My great-uncle occupied
an armchair, or, in attacks of gout, a couch on one side of a large open
chimney.... At a very early hour in the morning the alarum called the
maids, and their mistress also; and if the former were tardy, a louder
alarum, and more formidable, was heard chiding their delay--not that
scolding was peculiar to any occasion; it regularly ran on through all
the day, like bells on harness, inspiriting the work, whether it were
done well or ill." In the annotated volume of the son's memoir which
belonged to Edward FitzGerald, the writer added the following detail as
to his great-aunt's temper and methods:--"A wench whom Mrs. Tovell had
pursued with something weightier than invective--a ladle, I
think--whimpered out 'If an angel from Hiv'n were to come mawther'"
(Suffolk for _girl_) "'to missus, she wouldn't give no satisfaction.'"

George Crabbe the younger, who gives this graphic account of the
_menage_ at Parham, was naturally a