Crabbe acquiesced in his wife's decision, and the novels were cremated without a murmur.

A somewhat similar fate attended a set of Tales in Verse which, in the year 1799, Crabbe was about to offer to Mr.
Hatchard, the publisher, when he wisely took the opinion of his rector at Sweffling, then resident at Yarmouth, the Rev.Richard Turner[3].
This gentleman, whose opinion Crabbe greatly valued, advised _revision_, and Crabbe accepted the verdict as the reverse of encouraging.

The Tales were never published, and Crabbe again deferred his reappearance in print for a period of eight years.

Meantime he applied himself to the leisurely composition of the _Parish Register_, which extended, together with that of some shorter poems, over the period just named.
In the last years of the eighteenth century there was a sudden awakening among the bishops to the growing abuse of non-residence and pluralities on the part of the clergy.

One prelate of distinction devoted his triennial charge to the subject, and a general "stiffening" of episcopal good nature set in all round.