Crabbe was admitted to deacon's orders in December 1781 by Dr. Yonge, bishop of Norwich, and was ordained n priest iu August of the year following. Ile commenced his clerical life as curate of his native town. Shortly after he obtained, through Burke's influence, the situation of domestic chaplain to the Duke of Rutland, and resided in consequence at Belvoir Castle. The Village' appeared in 1783, having been revised by Dr. Johnson : its success was great, and Crabbe's reputation was now fully established. In the same year Lord Thurlow, who had taken a previous opportunity of apologising for his first repulse of Crabbe, presented him with two small livings io Dureetshire, telling him, as he gave them, that "he was as like Parson Adams as twelve to the dozen." Crabbe now married Miss Sarah Elmy, time object of his first love. The Duke of Rutland had been in the mean time appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland. Crabbe did not accompany bun to Ireland, but apartments in Belvoir Castle were assigned to the young married couple. In 1735 Crabbe took the neighbouring curacy of Strathcrn, and removed from the castle to the parsonage of that parish.
Crabbe published the Newspaper ' in 1735. He did not come forward again as an author until 1807, when after an interval of twenty-two years appeared the Pari.11 Register.' He resided in the meanwhile successively at Strathern, at Muston in Leicestershire (Lend Thorlow having in 1789, at the Duchess of Rutland's earnest request, exchanged his two small livings in Dorsetshire for those of Muston and Alliugton, both situated in the Vale of Belvoir); from 1792 to 1796 at Parham in Suffolk, taking charge of the neighbouring curacies of Sweffling and Great Glemham ; then in Great Glemham Hall, a h muse belonging to Mr. Dudley North, his early benefactor; until at last, in 1805, he returned to his rectory at Muston. Though during this long period Crabbe published no poetry, he was not idle. He studied botany, which had always been a favourite pursuit, with great ardour ; and wrote an essay ou botany in English, which he was on the point of publishing when, yielding to the remonstrances of a vice-master of Trinity College, Cambridge, against degrading the science by treating it iu a modern tongue, he consigned his manuscript to the flames. Ile also pursued entomology and geology. He taught himself French and Italian, and superintended the education of his sons. He was also, according to his son's account, continually writing; and among his compositions during this period were three novels, which, upon his wife 'e suggesting that the tales would have been better in verse, he consigned to the same fate with the essay on botany.
Together with The Parish Register' there appeared, in 1807, Sir Euetace Grey' and other smaller pieces, and a reprint of his earlier poems; the object of tho publication being to enable him to send his second eon to Cambridge. Three years after ho published 'The Borough.' In 1813 he sustained a heavy affliction iu the loss of his wife; and it was a fortunate circumstance, at a time when every scene at &Neon would excite it painful remembrance, that the Duke of Rutland, the son of his former patron, gave him the living of Prow brid;o lu Wilt/shire. The incumbency of Croxton near Belvoir was • added shortly after.
The remainder of Crabbe's days were, with the exceptiou of occa sional visits to his friends iu London and elsewhere, passed at Trow bridge, where his conscientious discharge of his duties and his amiable character gained for him the love of all his parishioners. When in London he was much courted by those among the great who are studious to derive distinction from the patronage of literary men : and he made the acquaintance of most of those who, during his retiremeut, had earned for themselves fame in his own vocation— Rogers, Moore, Campbell, Wordsworth, Southey, and Sir Walter Scott.
His Tales of the Hall' were published in 1819 by Mr. Murray, who gave him 3000/. for them and the remaining copyright of his previous poems. In the autumn of 1822 he visited Sir Walter Scott at Ediu burgh. From 1823 there was a perceptible change in his health, and though his mind retained its wonted cheerfulness, his strength of body gradually declined. He died on the 3rd of February 1832, in his seventy-eighth year. The shops in Trowbridge were closed as soon as his death was known, and again on the day of his funeral; and a subscription was immediately set on foot among his parishioners for a monument to their departed rector, which has since been placed in Trowbridge church.
The moral character of Crabbe is an almost perfect model. Its greatest fault was an excess of gentleness. Rising from a very low situation in life, he came to associate much with those whom the world sets up fur worship; but, under circumstances whose corrupting influence few have withstood, he never lost that habit of self-dependence without which there is neither dignity nor happiness. Joined with an indifference to factitious distinctions, was an absence of all pride occasioned by his owu iutellectual eminence. He was meek, observant of merit in others, and eager to impart to those who were, as he had been, distressed, a share of the advantages which his own good fortune had procured for him. As a husband, father, and frieud, he was without reproach. His son's account of the manner in which his days were p awed at the parsonage presents a delightful picture of domestic happiness.
The distinguishing excellences of Crabbe's poetry are simplicity, pathos, force, and truth in describing character. lie has said himself that all his characters were taken from persons whom he had seen and known. Observing these closely, and specifying each trait and minute circumstance, he presents his readers with representations not of classes of men, but of individuals. It is the minute accuracy of these representations that constitutes their charm. Who can forget Isaac Ashford ? The celebrated descriptions of the parish workhouse, and of the "disputatious crew" of thieves and smugglers iu The Parish Register,' show the same faculty of minute observation and have the same charm of faithful delineation. There are also in his poems some good descriptions of natural scenery, for Metance, at the commence ment of ' The Village;' but then it is only scenery of the sort for which what Jeffrey called his "Chinese accuracy" is fitted. Crabbe had little inventive power. Viewing him moreover not merely as a poet whose business is to please, but as one possessing powers which it is his duty to employ for the improvement of his fellow men and the increase of social happiness, it may be fairly objected to him that he has seldom gone beyond tho representation of existing evil, or taught how the poor, of whom he is emphatically called the poet, may be made wiser, and better, and happier.
An edition of Crabbe's poems in 8 vela. was published by Murray in 1834. The eighth volume consists of a collection of tales in verse, then published tor the first time, which will not add much to the author's reputation. The Life' by his son, the Rev. George Crabbe, a very pleasing piece of filial biography, occupies the first volume.