But amid all the signs of a poetical _renaissance_ in progress, and under a natural temptation to tread the fresh woods and pictures new that were opening before him, it showed a true judgment in Crabbe that he never faltered in the conviction that his own opportunity and his own strength lay elsewhere.
Not in the romantic or the mystical--not in perfection of form or melody of lyric verse, were his own humbler triumphs to be won.

Like Wordsworth, he was to find a sufficiency in the "common growth of mother-earth," though indeed less in her "mirth" than in her "tears," Notwithstanding his _Eustace Grey_, and _World of Dreams_, and the really powerful story of Aaron the Gipsy (afterwards to appear as the _The Hall of Justice_), Crabbe was returning to the themes and the methods of _The Village_.

He had already completed _The Parish Register_, and had _The Borough_ in contemplation, when he returned to his Leicestershire parish.

The woods of Belvoir, and the rural charms of Parham and Glemham, had not dimmed the memory of the sordid little fishing-town, where the spirit of poetry had first met him, and thrown her mantle round him.
And now the day had come when the mandate of the bishop could no longer be ignored.

In October 1805, Crabbe with his wife and two sons returned to the Parsonage at Muston.