LAST YEARS AT TROWBRIDGE (1819-1832) The last thirteen years of Crabbe's life were spent at Trowbridge, varied by occasional absences among hiss friends at Bath, and in the neighbourhood, and by annual visits of greater length to the family of Samuel Hoare at Hampstead.

Meantime his son John was resident with him at Trowbridge, and the parish and parishioners were not neglected.

From Mrs.Hoare's house on Hampstead Heath it was not difficult to visit his literary friends in London; and Wordsworth, Southey, and others, occasionally stayed with the family.

But as early as 1820, Crabbe became subject to frequent severe attacks of neuralgia (then called _tic douloureux_), and this malady, together with the gradual approach of old age, made him less and less able to face the fatigue of London hospitalities.
Notwithstanding his failing health, and not infrequent absence from his parish--for he occasionally visited the Isle of Wight, Hastings, and other watering-places with his Hampstead friends--Crabbe was living down at Trowbridge much of the unpopularity with which he had started.

The people were beginning to discover what sterling qualities of heart existed side by side with defects of tact and temper, and the lack of sympathy with certain sides of evangelical teaching.