h a description of
a wretched room, similar to some that are presented in his poetry, and
that on my mother's telling him frankly that she thought the effect very
inferior to that of the corresponding pieces in verse, he paused in his
reading, and after some reflection, said, 'Your remark is just.'"

Mrs. Crabbe's remark was probably very just. Although her husband had
many qualifications for writing prose fiction--insight into and
appreciation of character, combined with much tragic force and a real
gift for description--there is reason to think that he would have been
stilted and artificial in dialogue, and altogether wanting in lightness
of hand. Crabbe acquiesced in his wife's decision, and the novels were
cremated without a murmur. A somewhat similar fate attended a set of
Tales in Verse which, in the year 1799, Crabbe was about to offer to Mr.
Hatchard, the publisher, when he wisely took the opinion of his rector
at Sweffling, then resident at Yarmouth, the Rev. Richard Turner[3].
This gentleman, whose opinion Crabbe greatly valued, advised _revision_,
and Crabbe accepted the verdict as the reverse of encouraging. The Tales
were never published, and Crabbe again deferred his reappearance in
print for a period of eight years. Meantime he applied himself to the
leisurely composition of the _Parish Register_, which extended, together
with that of some shorter poems, over the period just named.

In the last years of the eighteenth century there was a sudden awakening
among the bishops to the growing abuse of non-residence and pluralities
on the part of the clergy. One prelate of distinction devoted his
triennial charge to the subject, and a general "stiffening" of episcopal
good nature set in all round. The Bishop of Lincoln addressed Crabbe,
with others of his delinquent clergy, and intimated to him very
distinctly the duty of returning to those few sheep in the wilderness at
Muston and Allington. Crabbe, in much distress, applied to his friend
Dudley North to use influence on his behalf to obtain extension of
leave. But the bishop, Dr. Pretyman (Pitt's tutor and friend--better
known by the name he afterwards adopted of Tomlins) would not yield, and
it was probably owing to pressure from some different quarter that
Crabbe succeeded in obtaining leave of absence for four years longer.
Dudley North would fain have solved the problem by giving Crabbe one or
more of the livings in his own gift in Suffolk, but none of ade