ripened into an intimacy not without effect, I think, upon the remaining
efforts of Crabbe as a poet. One immediate result was that Crabbe
yielded to Rogers's strong advice to him to visit London, and take his
place among the literary society of the day. This visit was paid in the
summer of 1817, when Crabbe stayed in London from the middle of June to
the end of July.

Crabbe's son rightly included in his _Memoir_ several extracts from his
father's Diary kept during this visit. They are little more than
briefest entries of engagements, but serve to show the new and brilliant
life to which the poet was suddenly introduced. He constantly dined and
breakfasted with Rogers, where he met and was welcomed by Rogers's
friends. His old acquaintance with Fox gave him the _entrée_ of Holland
House. Thomas Campbell was specially polite to him, and really attracted
by him. Crabbe visited the theatres, and was present at the farewell
banquet given to John Kemble. Through Rogers and Campbell he was
introduced to John Murray of Albemarle Street, who later became his
publisher. He sat for his portrait to Pickersgill and Phillips, and saw
the painting by the latter hanging on the Academy walls when dining at
their annual banquet. Again, through an introduction at Bath to Samuel
Hoare of Hampstead, Crabbe formed a friendship with him and his family
of the most affectionate nature. During the first and all later visits
to London Crabbe was most often their guest at the mansion on the summit
of the famous "Northern Height," with which, after Crabbe's death,
Wordsworth so touchingly associated his name, in the lines written on
the death of the Ettrick Shepherd and his brother-poets:

"Our haughty life is crowned with darkness,
Like London with its own black wreath,
On which with thee, O Crabbe, forth looking,