An old squire remarked to a friend in reference to this subject, "D--mme, sir! the very first time Crabbe dined at my house he made love to my sister!" And a lady is known to have complained that on a similar occasion Crabbe had exhibited so much warmth of manner that she "felt quite frightened." His son entirely supports the same view as to his father's almost demonstratively affectionate manner towards ladies who interested him, and who, perhaps owing to his rising repute as an author, showed a corresponding interest in the elderly poet.
Crabbe himself admits "the soft impeachment." In a letter to his newly found correspondent, Mrs.Leadbeater (granddaughter of Burke's old schoolmaster, Richard Shackleton), he confesses that women were more to him than men: "I'm alone now; and since my removing into a busy town among the multitude, the loneliness is but more apparent and more melancholy.

But this is only at certain times; and then I have, though at considerable distances, six female friends, unknown to each other, but all dear, very dear, to me.

With them I do not much associate; not as deserting, and much less disliking, the male part of society, but as being unfit for it; not hardy nor grave, not knowing enough, nor sufficiently acquainted 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.