Poor George Crabbe, the poet-doctor-apothecary, had a very hard time in
this cold, unappreciative world, until Love smiled upon his unhappy lot.
He was born in the old sea-side town of Aldoborough, where his father was
salt inspector,--not an over-lucrative office in those days. George was
the eldest of a numerous family.
From the common school he went to apprenticeship with a rough old country
doctor, who lodged him with the stable-boy. From this indignity he was,
however, soon released, and went to live with a kind gentleman, a surgeon
of Woodbridge. Here he began to write poetry. Here, also, he became
acquainted with a young surgeon, named Leavett, who introduced Crabbe to a
lovely young lady, with whom he fell desperately in love.
This inestimable young lady resided at Parham Lodge with her uncle, John
Tovell, yeoman, and her name was Sarah Elmy. Mr. Tovell possessed an
estate worth four thousand dollars per annum, and, without assuming any
"airs," was a first-class "yeoman" of that period--"one that already began
to be styled, by courtesy, an esquire."
"On Crabbe's first introduction to Parham Lodge, he was received with
cordiality; but when it became known that he had fallen in love with the
squire's niece, it was only natural that his presumption should at first
meet with the disapproval of Mrs. Tovell and the squire."
[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF GEORGE CRABBE.]
After closing his term of apprenticeship with Dr. Page, young Crabbe
returned to his native village, where he furnished a little shop with "a
pound's worth of drugs," and an array of empty bottles, and set himself up
as an apothecary. His few patients were only amongst the poorer class of
the town. Although he had plighted troth with the lovely Sarah at Parham
Lodge, with starvation staring him in the face at Aldoborough, and the
opposition of the lady's family at the Lodge, there was little prospect
of bettering his condition in life. The temporary military appointments
which he received brought him no nearer his desired object. The lady
remained true to her vows; and long after his friend Leavett had quitted
the shores of time, and his new and true friend Burke had extended to the
promising author his patronage, she received the reward for her faithful
waiting.
The union of Crabbe with Miss Elmy conferred eventually upon the poet,
doctor, and apothecary, the possession of the estate of "yeoman"
Tovell--Parham Lodge. A maiden sister of the squire's, dying, left him a
considerable sum of money. The loving, waiting Sarah proved a faithful,
though some might say a somewhat domineering, wife, as the following
quotation intimates:--
"I can screw Crabbe up or down, just like an old fiddle," this amiable
woman was wont to say; and throughout her life she amply demonstrated the
assertion.
"But her last will and testament was a handsome apology for all her past
little tiffs."