JOHN DYER, the son of a solicitor "of great capacity and note," was born at Aberglasney, Carmarthenshire, in the year 1700. He was educated at Westminster School, and was intended for the profession of his father; but his pencil and his pen were both destined to take a wider range. He became, as he says, "an itinerant painter in Wales;" having taken lessons from "Mr. Richardson, then an artist of high reputation, but now better known by his books than by his pictures." During his wanderings among the wild and beautiful scenery of his native land, taking sketches of its most picturesque views, he wooed also the sister Muse, and produced the most delightful of his poems-"Grongar Hill." His hopes and desires conducted him to Italy. Of the benefit which, as an artist, he derived from this visit, we have little proof; but on his return, in 1740, he published "The Ruins of Rome." If he failed in acquiring skill sufficient to render him "famous" as a painter- his talent, as we are told, being "rather for sketching than painting"-he at least made himself familiar with the antiquities, and the surrounding spots which history has rendered sacred, in the Imperial city; of these he made ample use in his subsequent compositions. Soon after his return he married a lady of the name of Ensor"whose grandmother," he says, "was a Shakspeare, descended from a brother of every body's Shakspeare"-entered into holy orders; and was successively presented to the livings of Calthorp, in Leicestershire, and Belchford and Kirkby, in Lincolnshire. In 1757 he published "The Fleece," the longest of his works, the contents of which may be explained by the introductory lines: "The care of sheep, the labours of the loom, The poem obtained little popularity, although the writer considered it as his greatest work, and although a high contemporary authority-Akenside-was so convinced of its merit as to declare, that he would regulate by its fate his opinion of the reigning taste; "for if that was ill received he should not think it any longer reasonable to expect fame from excellence." He did not long survive this publicationdying on the 24th of July, 1758; "respected by the world as a man of superior endowments," and "beloved by his friends for the gentleness and sweetness of his disposition." The feeling of the Painter, as well as of the Poet, is evident in the written pictures of the author of "Grongar Hill." He looked upon the sublime and beautiful around him with the eye of an artist, and felt their influence with the fervour and imagination of a poet. Although aiming at a higher, but achieving a less pleasing character, the "Ruins of Rome" affords equal proof of the accomplished mind and refined taste of the writer. It is a fine and energetic narrative of the rise, meridian, decline, and fall, of the Roman empire; with reflections on its splendour and decay, the advantages of political freedom, and the fatal influence of national luxury. "The Fleece," which never realised the expectations of its author, and is now altogether neglected, contains, we think, sufficient to justify his hopes, and to bear out the opinion which the highest contemporary authority pronounced upon it. It is written in blank verse; and Dr. Johnson, who rarely omitted an opportunity of "crying down" that style of composition, condemns the poem as meriting the oblivion to which it has been consigned. The peculiar excellence of Dyer was the happy facility with which he painted in words. "The Fleece" is a collection of pictures; and, notwithstanding the apparently uninviting nature of the subject, contains some of the loveliest descriptions of nature, and her most attractive works, that are to be found in any author ancient or modern; it also abounds with historical facts and allusions, illustrative of English scenery; and we cannot believe that, even with reference to its details concerning the "arts of trade," many readers will be found to agree with the great critic, in considering that "the meanness naturally adhering, and the irreve rence habitually annexed to trade and manufacture, have sunk the writer under habitual oppression." England, which owes so much of its greatness and its glory to the "arts of trade" and the "labours of the loom," has, we think, too much neglected the efforts of those who suceeeded in giving dignity to both. WHEN many-colour'd evening sinks behind The purple woods and hills, and opposite Rises, full-or'b, the silver harvest-moon, To light th' unwearied farmer, late afield His scatter'd sheaves collecting; then expect The artists, bent on speed, from populous Leeds, Norwich, or Frome; they traverse every plain, And every dale, where farm or cottage smokes: Reject them not; and let the season's price Win thy soft treasures: let the bulky wain Through dusty roads run nodding; or the bark, That silently adown the cerule stream Glides with white sails, dispense the downy freight To copsy villages on either side, And spiry towns, where ready diligence, The grateful burden to receive, awaits, Like strong Briareus, with his hundred hands. GRONGAR HILL. SILENT nymph, with curious eye! Draw the landscape bright and strong; 1 With my hand beneath my head; While stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood, Over mead and over wood, From house to house, from hill to hill, About his chequer'd sides I wind, As circles on a smooth canal: The mountains round, unhappy fate! Withdraw their summits from the skies, Still the prospect wider spreads, Now, I gain the mountain's brow, Below me trees unnumber'd rise, The gloomy pine, the poplar blue, Lies a long and level lawn, On which a dark hill, steep and high, Deep are his feet in Towy's flood, His sides are cloth'd with waving wood, 'Tis now the raven's bleak abode; And see the rivers how they run, To disperse our cares away. Ever charming, ever new, gay, When will the landscape tire the view! The fountain's fall, the river's flow, The woody valleys warm and low; See on the mountain's southern side, |