other painters, travelled to Italy, and coming back in 1740 published The Ruins of Rome1. 5 If his poem was written soon after his return he did not make much use of his acquisitions in painting, whatever they might be; for decline of health and love of study determined him to the church. He therefore entered into orders, and, it seems, married about the same time a lady of the name of Ensor, 'whose grandmother,' says he, 'was a Shakespeare, descended from a brother of everybody's Shakespeare'; by her, in 1756, he had a son and three daughters living. 6 His ecclesiastical provision was a long time but slender. His first patron, Mr. Harper, gave him, in 1741, Calthorp3 in Leicestershire of eighty pounds a year, on which he lived ten years, and then exchanged it for Belchford in Lincolnshire of seventy-five. His condition now began to mend. In 1751, Sir John Heathcote gave him Coningsby, of one hundred and forty pounds a year; and in 1755 the Chancellor added Kirkby, of one hundred and ten. He complains that the repair of the house at Coningsby, and other expences, took away the profit". 7 In 1757 he published The Fleece, his greatest poetical work, of which I will not suppress a ludicrous story. Dodsley the bookseller was one day mentioning it to a critical visiter, with more expectation of success than the other could easily admit. In the conversation the author's age was asked, and being represented as advanced in life, 'He will,' said the critick, 'be buried in woollen '.' He did not indeed long survive that publication, nor long 8 enjoy the increase of his preferments, for in 1758 he died 2. Dyer is not a poet of bulk or dignity sufficient to require an 9 elaborate criticism. Grongar Hill3 is the happiest of his productions; it is not indeed very accurately written, but the scenes which it displays are so pleasing, the images which they raise so welcome to the mind, and the reflections of the writer so consonant to the general sense or experience of mankind, that when it is once read it will be read again. The idea of The Ruins of Rome strikes more but pleases less, 10 and the title raises greater expectation than the performance gratifies. Some passages, however, are conceived with the mind of a poet, as when in the neighbourhood of dilapidating edifices he says, 'At dead of night The hermit oft, 'midst his orisons, hears Aghast the voice of Time disparting towers.' Of The Fleece, which never became popular, and is now 11 universally neglected, I can say little that is likely to recall it to attention. The woolcomber and the poet appear to me such ''The statute of Charles II, which prescribes a dress for the dead, who are all ordered to be buried in woollen, is a law consistent with public liberty, for it encourages the staple trade, on which in great measure depends the universal good of the nation.' BLACKSTONE, Com. 1775, i. 126. Burke said of Lord Chatham, who was swathed in flannel owing to the gout:-'Like a true obeyer of the laws, he will be buried in woollen.' Burke's Corres. ii. 201. 'Odious! in woollen! 'twould a Saint provoke ! [cissa spoke).' (Were the last words that poor NarPOPE, Moral Essays, i. 246. 2 July 24, 1758. Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, iii. 291. His death is not in Gent. Mag. 3 Eng. Poets, lviii. 109. * In the original 'The pilgrim oft At dead of night, mid his oraison hears,' &c. The Ruins of Rome, 1740, p. 3. Johnson gives both orison and oraison in his Dictionary. Gray, after reading in 1748 Dodsley's Misc.,in which were reprinted Grongar Hill and The Ruins of Rome (ed. 1758, i. 214, 220), wrote to Walpole:' Mr. Dyer (here you will despise me highly) has more of poetry in his imagination than almost any of our number; but rough and injudicious.' Letters, i. 183. 'A beautiful instance of the modifying and investive power of imagination may be seen in that noble passage of Dyer's Ruins of Rome where the poet hears the voice of Time.' WORDSWORTH, Memoirs, ii. 477. 5 Horace Walpole wrote on Feb. 3, 1760:-'I think Mr. Dyer's Fleece a very insipid poem. His Ruins of Rome had great picturesque spirit, and his Grongar Hill was beautiful. His Fleece I could never get through.' Letters, iii. 284. other painters, travelled to Italy, and coming back in 1740 published The Ruins of Rome1. 5 If his poem was written soon after his return he did not make much use of his acquisitions in painting, whatever they might be; for decline of health and love of study determined him to the church. He therefore entered into orders, and, it seems, married about the same time a lady of the name of Ensor, 'whose grandmother,' says he, 'was a Shakespeare, descended from a brother of everybody's Shakespeare'; by her, in 1756, he had a son and three daughters living. 6 His ecclesiastical provision was a long time but slender. His first patron, Mr. Harper, gave him, in 1741, Calthorp3 in Leicestershire of eighty pounds a year, on which he lived ten years, and then exchanged it for Belchford in Lincolnshire of seventy-five. His condition now began to mend. In 1751, Sir John Heathcote gave him Coningsby, of one hundred and forty pounds a year; and in 1755 the Chancellor added Kirkby, of one hundred and ten. He complains that the repair of the house at Coningsby, and other expences, took away the profit'. 6 7 In 1757 he published The Fleece, his greatest poetical work, of which I will not suppress a ludicrous story. Dodsley' the bookseller was one day mentioning it to a critical visiter, with more expectation of success than the other could easily admit. In the conversation the author's age was asked, and being 4 represented as advanced in life, 'He will,' said the critick, 'be buried in woollen '.' He did not indeed long survive that publication, nor long 8 enjoy the increase of his preferments, for in 1758 he died2. Dyer is not a poet of bulk or dignity sufficient to require an 9 elaborate criticism. Grongar Hill is the happiest of his productions; it is not indeed very accurately written, but the scenes which it displays are so pleasing, the images which they raise so welcome to the mind, and the reflections of the writer so consonant to the general sense or experience of mankind, that when it is once read it will be read again. The idea of The Ruins of Rome strikes more but pleases less, 10 and the title raises greater expectation than the performance gratifies. Some passages, however, are conceived with the mind of a poet, as when in the neighbourhood of dilapidating edifices he says, 'At dead of night The hermit oft, 'midst his orisons, hears Aghast the voice of Time disparting towers.' Of The Fleece, which never became popular, and is now 11 universally neglected, I can say little that is likely to recall it to attention. The woolcomber and the poet appear to me such ''The statute of Charles II, which prescribes a dress for the dead, who are all ordered to be buried in woollen, is a law consistent with public liberty, for it encourages the staple trade, on which in great measure depends the universal good of the nation.' BLACKSTONE, Com. 1775, i. 126. Burke said of Lord Chatham, who was swathed in flannel owing to the gout:-'Like a true obeyer of the laws, he will be buried in woollen.' Burke's Corres. ii. 201. 'Odious! in woollen! 'twould a Saint provoke ! [cissa spoke).' (Were the last words that poor NarPOPE, Moral Essays, i. 246. 2 July 24, 1758. Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, iii. 291. His death is not in Gent. Mag. 3 Eng. Poets, lviii. 109. • In the original 'The pilgrim oft At dead of night, mid his oraison hears,' &c. The Ruins of Rome, 1740, p. 3. Johnson gives both orison and oraison in his Dictionary. Gray, after reading in 1748 Dodsley's Misc.,in which were reprinted Grongar Hill and The Ruins of Rome (ed. 1758, i. 214, 220), wrote to Walpole:'Mr. Dyer (here you will despise me highly) has more of poetry in his imagination than almost any of our number; but rough and injudicious.' Letters, i. 183. 'A beautiful instance of the modifying and investive power of imagination may be seen in that noble passage of Dyer's Ruins of Rome where the poet hears the voice of Time.' WORDSWORTH, Memoirs, ii. 477.. Horace Walpole wrote on Feb. 3, 1760-'I think Mr. Dyer's Fleece a very insipid poem. His Ruins of Rome had great picturesque spirit, and his Grongar Hill was beautiful. His Fleece I could never get through.' Letters, iii. 284. discordant natures, that an attempt to bring them together is to 'couple the serpent with the fowl. When Dyer, whose mind was not unpoetical, has done his utmost by interesting his reader in our native commodity, by interspersing rural imagery and incidental digressions, by cloathing small images in great words, and by all the writer's arts of delusion, the meanness naturally adhering, and the irreverence habitually annexed to trade and manufacture, sink him under insuperable oppression; and the disgust which blank verse 3, encumbering and encumbered, superadds to an unpleasing subject, soon repels the reader, however willing to be pleased. 12 Let me, however, honestly report whatever may counterbalance this weight of censure. I have been told that Akenside, who, |