Crabbe's son and biographer for saying that he
never really cared for the profession he had adopted. What proficiency
he finally attained in it, before he forsook it for ever, is not quite
clear. But it is certain that his residence among the more civilised and
educated inhabitants of Woodbridge was of the greatest service to him.
He profited notably by joining a little club of young men who met on
certain evenings at an inn for discussion and mutual improvement. To
this little society Crabbe was to owe one chief happiness of his life.
One of its members, Mr. W.S. Levett, a surgeon (one wonders if a
relative of Samuel Johnson's protege), was at this time courting a Miss
Brereton, of Framlingham, ten miles away. Mr. Levett died young in 1774,
and did not live to marry, but during his brief friendship with Crabbe
was the means of introducing him to the lady who, after many years of
patient waiting, became his wife. In the village of Great Parham, not
far from Framlingham, lived a Mr. Tovell, of Parham Hall, a substantial
yeoman, farming his own estate. With Mr. and Mrs. Tovell and their only
child, a daughter, lived an orphan niece of Mr. Tovell's, a Miss Sarah
Elmy, Miss Brereton's bosom-friend, and constant companion. Mr. Levett
had in consequence become the friend of the Tovell family, and conceived
the desire that his young friend, Crabbe, should be as blessed as
himself. "George," he said, "you shall go with me to Parham; there is a
young lady there who would just suit you!" Crabbe accepted the
invitation, made Mr. Tovell's acquaintance, and promptly fell in love
with Mr. Tovell's niece. The poet, at that time, had not yet completed
his eighteenth year.

How soon after this first meeting George Crabbe proposed and was
accepted, is not made clear, but he was at least welcomed to the house
as a friend and an admirer, and his further visits encouraged. His youth
and the extreme uncertainty of his prospects could not well have been
agreeable to Mr. and Mrs. Tovell, or to Miss Elmy's widowed mother who
lived not far away at Beccles, but the young lady herself returned her
lover's affection from the first, and never faltered. The three
following years, during which Crabbe remained at Woodbridge, gave him
the opportunity of occasional visits, and there can be no doubt that
apart from the fascinations of his "Mira," by which name he proceeded to
celebrate her in occasional verse, the experience of country life and
scenery, s