Here the family remained for a further period of four or five years.
A fresh bereavement in his family had made Crabbe additionally anxious for change of scene and associations for his wife.

In 1796, another child died--their third son, Edmund--in his sixth year.

Two children, out of a family of seven, alone remained; and this final blow proved more than the poor mother could bear uninjured.

From this time dated "a nervous disorder," which indeed meant a gradual decay of mental power, from which she never recovered; and Crabbe, an ever-devoted husband, tended her with exemplary care till her death in 1813.

Southey, writing about Crabbe to his friend, Neville White, in 1808, adds: "It was not long before his wife became deranged, and when all this was told me by one who knew him well, five years ago, he was still almost confined in his own house, anxiously waiting upon this wife in her long and hopeless malady.