John Dyer, of whom I have no other account to give than his own letters,
published with Hughes's correspondence, and the notes added by the
editor, have afforded me, was born in 1700, the second son of Robert
Dyer, of Aberglasney, in Caermarthenshire, a solicitor of great capacity
and note.
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 awhile under his master, he became, as he tells his
friend, an itinerant painter, and wandered about South Wales, and the
parts adjacent; but he mingled poetry with painting, and, about 1727,
printed Grongar Hill in Lewis's Miscellany.
Being, probably, unsatisfied with his own proficiency, he, like other
painters, travelled to Italy; and coming back in 1740, published the
Ruins of Rome.
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 every body's Shakespeare;" by her, in 1756,
he had a son and three daughters living.
His ecclesiastical provision was, for a long time, but slender. His
first patron, Mr. Harper, gave him, in 1741, Calthorp, 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 expenses, took away the
profit. 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 enjoy the
increase of his preferments; for in 1758 (July 24th,) he died.
Dyer is not a poet of bulk or dignity sufficient to require an 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 are 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, 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,
The pilgrim oft
At dead of night, mid his orison hears
Aghast the voice of time, disparting tow'rs,
Tumbling all precip'tate down, dash'd,
Rattling around, loud thund'ring to the moon.
Of the Fleece, which never became popular, and is now universally
neglected, I can say little that is likely to recall it to attention.
The woolcomber and the poet appear to me such 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 clothing 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, encumbering and encumbered, superadds to an
unpleasing subject, soon repels the reader, however willing to be
pleased.
Let me, however, honestly report whatever may counterbalance this weight
of censure. I have been told, that Akenside, who, upon a poetical
question, has a right to be heard, said, "That he would regulate his
opinion of the reigning taste by the fate of Dyer's Fleece; for if that
were ill-received, he should not think it any longer reasonable to
expect fame from excellence."