DYER.
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OHN DYER, of whom I have no other account to give than his own letters,published with Hughes’s correspondence, and the notes added by theeditor, have afforded me, was born in 1700, the second son of Robert Dyerof Aberglasney, in Caermarthenshire, a solicitor of great capacity andnote. He passed through Westminster school under the care of Dr. Freind,and was then called home to be instructed in his father’s profession.But his father died soon, and he took no delight in the study of the law;but, having always amused himself with drawing, resolved to turn painter,and became pupil to Mr. Richardson, an artist then of high reputation,but now better known by his books than by his pictures. Having studied a while under his master, he became, as he tells hisfriend, an itinerant painter, and wandered about South Wales and theparts adjacent; but he mingled poetry with painting, and about 1727[1726] printed “Grongar Hill” in Lewis’s Miscellany. Being, probably,unsatisfied with his own proficiency, he, like other painters, travelledto Italy; and coming back in 1740, published the “Ruins of Rome.” If hispoem was written soon after his return, he did not make use of hisacquisitions in painting, whatever they might be; for decline of healthand love of study determined him to the Church. He therefore enteredinto orders; and, it seems, married about the same time a lady of thename of Ensor; “whose grandmother,” says he, “was a Shakspeare, descendedfrom a brother of everybody’s Shakspeare;” by her, in 1756, he had a sonand three daughters living. His ecclesiastical provision was for a long time but slender. His firstpatron, Mr. Harper, gave him, in 1741, Calthorp in Leicestershire, ofeighty pounds a year, on which he lived ten years, and then exchanged itfor Belchford, in Lincolnshire, of seventy-five. His condition now beganto mend. In 1751 Sir John Heathcote gave him Coningsby, of one hundredand forty pounds a year; and in 1755 the Chancellor added Kirkby, of onehundred and ten. He complains that the repair of the house at Coningsby,and other expenses, took away the profit. In 1757 he published “TheFleece,” his greatest poetical work; of which I will not suppress aludicrous story. Dodsley the bookseller was one day mentioning it to acritical visitor, with more expectation of success than the other couldeasily admit. In the conversation the author’s age was asked; and beingrepresented as advanced in life, “He will,” said the critic, “be buriedin woollen.” He did not indeed long survive that publication, nor longenjoy the increase of his preferments, for in 1758 he died. Dyer is not a poet of bulk or dignity sufficient to require an elaboratecriticism. “Grongar Hill” is the happiest of his productions: it is notindeed very accurately written; but the scenes which it displays are sopleasing, the images which they raise are so welcome to the mind, and thereflections of the writer so consonant to the general sense or experienceof mankind, that when it is once read, it will be read again. The ideaof the “Ruins of Rome” strikes more, but pleases less, and the titleraises greater expectation than the performance gratifies. Somepassages, however, are conceived with the mind of a poet; as when, in theneighbourhood of dilapidating edifices, he says, “The Pilgrim oftAt dead of night, ’mid his orison hearsAghast the voice of Time, disparting tow’rsTumbling all precipitate down dashed,Rattling around, loud thund’ring to the Moon.” Of “The Fleece,” which never became popular, and is now universallyneglected, I can say little that is likely to recall it to attention.The woolcomber and the poet appear to me such discordant natures, that anattempt to bring them together is to _couple the serpent with the fowl_.When Dyer, whose mind was not unpoetical, has done his utmost, byinteresting his reader in our native commodity by interspersing ruralimagery, and incidental digressions, by clothing small images in greatwords, and by all the writer’s arts of delusion, the meanness naturallyadhering, and the irreverence habitually annexed to trade andmanufacture, sink him under insuperable oppression; and the disgust whichblank verse, encumbering and encumbered, superadds to an unpleasingsubject, soon repels the reader, however willing to be pleased. Let me, however, honestly report whatever may counterbalance this weightof censure. I have been told that Akenside, who, upon a poeticalquestion, has a right to be heard, said, “That he would regulate hisopinion of the reigning taste by the fate of Dyer’s ‘Fleece;’ for, ifthat were ill-received, he should not think it any longer reasonable toexpect fame from excellence.”
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