Crabbe's son thought good to devote several pages of his _Memoir_ to the question why his father, having now no unmarried son to be his companion, should not have taken such a sensible step as to marry again. For the old man, if he deserved to be so called at the age of sixty-two, was still very susceptible to the charms of female society, and indeed not wholly free from the habit of philandering--a habit which occasionally "inspired feelings of no ordinary warmth" in the fair objects of "his vain devotion." One such incident all but ended in a permanent engagement. A MS. quotation from the poet's Diary, copied in the margin of FitzGerald's volume, may possibly refer to this occasion. Under date of September 22 occurs this entry: "Sidmouth. Miss Ridout. Declaration. Acceptance." But under October 5 is written the ominous word, "Mr. Ridout." And later: "Dec. 12. Charlotte's picture returned." A tragedy (or was it a comedy?) seems written in these few words. Edward FitzGerald adds to this his own note: "Miss Ridout I remember--an elegant spinster; friend of my mother's. About 1825 she had been at Sidmouth, and known Crabbe." The son quotes some very ardent verses belonging to this period, but not assignable to any particular charmer, such as one set beginning: "And wilt thou never smile again; Thy cruel purpose never shaken? Hast thou no feeling for my pain, Refused, disdain'd, despised, forsaken?" The son indicates these amiable foibles in a filial tone and in apologetic terms, but the "liberal shepherds" sometimes spoke more frankly. An old squire remarked to a friend in reference to this subject, "D--mme, sir! the very first time Crabbe dined at my house he made love to my sister!" And a lady is known to have complained that on a similar occasion Crabbe had exhibited so much warmth of manner that she "felt quite frightened." His son entirely supports the same view as to his father's almost demonstratively affectionate manner towards ladies who interested him, and who, perhaps owing to his rising repute as an author, showed a corresponding interest in the elderly poet. Crabbe himself admits "the soft impeachment." In a letter to his newly found correspondent, Mrs. Leadbeater (granddaughter of Burke's old schoolmaster, Richard Shackleton), he confesses that women were more to him than men: