Here the purple scented violet perfumed the air, and in one place coloured the ground.

On the left of the front in the narrower portion of the glen was the village; on the right, a confined view of richly wooded fields.

In fact, the whole parish and neighbourhood resemble a combination of groves, interspersed with fields cultivated like gardens, and intersected with those green dry lanes which tempt the walker in all weathers, especially in the evenings, when in the short grass of the dry sandy banks lies every few yards a glowworm, and the nightingales are pouring forth their melody in every direction." It was not, therefore, for lack of acquaintance with the more idyllic side of English country-life that Crabbe, when he once more addressed the public in verse, turned to the less sunny memories of his youth for inspiration.

It was not till some years after the appearance of _The Parish Register_ and _The Borough_ that the pleasant paths of inland Suffolk and of the Vale of Belvoir formed the background to his studies in human character.
Meantime Crabbe was perpetually writing, and as constantly destroying what he wrote.

His small flock at Great and Little Glemham employed part of his time; the education of his two sons, who were now withdrawn from school, occupied some more; and a wife in failing health was certainly not neglected.