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But this I need not to be told, 'Tis time to _live_, if I grow old." In 1792 Crabbe preached at the bishop's visitation at Grantham, and his sermon was so much admired that he was invited to receive into his house as pupils the sons of the Earl of Bute.

This task, however, Crabbe rightly declined, being diffident as to his scholarship.
In October of this year Crabbe was again working hard at his botany--for like the Friar in _Romeo and Juliet_ his time was always much divided between the counselling of young couples and the "culling of simples"-- when his household received the tidings of the death of John Tovell of Parham, after a brief illness.

It was momentous news to Crabbe's family, for it involved "good gifts," and many "possibilities." Crabbe was left executor, and as Mr.Tovell had died without children, the estate fell to his two sisters, Mrs.Elmy and an elderly spinster sister residing in Parham.