William Hayley

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William Hayley

This was also the name of a 17th century rector of St Giles in the Fields
St Giles in the Fields

St Giles in the Fields is a church in the London Borough of Camden, in the West End. It is close to Centre Point and Tottenham Court Road tube station....
and a contemporary architect b.1797 at Thornhill, West Yorkshire
Thornhill, West Yorkshire

Thornhill, is a village in West Yorkshire, England. It is located on a hill on the south side of the River Calder, and has extensive views of Dewsbury, Ossett and Wakefield....
.

William Hayley (November 9, 1745 - November 12, 1820), was an English

England

William Cowper

William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside....
.

Born at Chichester

Chichester

Chichester is a cathedral city status in the United Kingdom in West Sussex, England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Ancient Rome past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings....
, he was sent to Eton

Eton College

Eton College, also known as Eton, is a world-famous British independent school for boys, founded in 1440 by Henry VI of England. It was founded as the King's College of Our Lady of Eton beside Windsor....
in 1757, and to Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Trinity Hall is the fifth oldest college of the University of Cambridge, founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich....
, in 1762; his connection with the Middle Temple

Middle Temple

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn....
, London

London

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William Hayley (November 9, 1745 - November 12, 1820), was an English

England

William Cowper

Chichester

Eton College

Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Trinity Hall is the fifth oldest college of the University of Cambridge, founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich....
, in 1762; his connection with the Middle Temple

Middle Temple

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, where he was admitted in 1766, was merely nominal. In 1767 he left Cambridge and went to live in London. Two years later he married Eliza, daughter of Thomas Ball, dean of Chichester. His private means enabled Hayley to live on his patrimonial estate at Eartham

Eartham

Eartham is a village and civil parish in the Chichester in West Sussex, England located 8.5 kilometres north east of Chichester east of the A285 road....
, Sussex, and he retired there in 1774.

He had already written many occasional poetical pieces, when in 1771 his tragedy

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of The arts based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific Poetic tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture....
, The Afflicted Father, was rejected by David Garrick

David Garrick

David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and Theatrical producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson....
. In the same year his translation of Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille

File:Pierre Corneille 3.jpgPierre Corneille was a French tragedy who was one of the three great seventeenth Century French dramatists, along with Moli?re and Jean Racine....
's Rodogune as The Syrian Queen was also declined by George Colman

George Colman the Elder

George Colman was an England dramatist and essayist, usually called "the Elder", and sometimes "George the First", to distinguish him from his son, George Colman the Younger....
. Hayley won the fame he enjoyed amongst his contemporaries by his poetical Essays and Epistles; a Poetical Epistle to an Eminent Painter (1780), addressed to his friend George Romney

George Romney (painter)

George Romney was a noted England portrait Painting....
, an Essay on History (1780), in three epistles, addressed to Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788....
; Essay on Epic Poetry (1782) addressed to William Mason

William Mason (poet)

William Mason was an England poet, editor and gardener.He was born in Kingston upon Hull and educated at Hull Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge....
; A Philosophical Essay on Old Maids (1785); and the Triumphs of Temper (1781). The last-mentioned work was so popular as to run to twelve or fourteen editions; together with the Triumphs of Music (Chichester, 1804) it was ridiculed by Byron in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

So great was Hayley's fame that on Thomas Warton

Thomas Warton

Thomas Warton was an England literary historian and critic, as well as a poet. From 1785 through 1790 he was the Poet Laureate of England....
's death in 1790 he was offered the laureateship

Poet Laureate

A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events....
, which he refused. In 1792, while writing the Life of Milton

John Milton

John Milton II was an English poet, author, polemicist and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England. He is best known for his Epic poetry Paradise Lost and for his treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica....
, Hayley made Cowper's acquaintance. A warm friendship sprang up between the two which lasted till Cowper's death in 1800. Hayley indeed was mainly instrumental in getting Cowper his pension. In 1800 Hayley also lost his natural son, Thomas Alphonso Hayley, to whom he was devotedly attached. He had been a pupil of John Flaxman

John Flaxman

John Flaxman , was an England sculpture and drawing....
's, to whom Hayley's Essay on Sculpture (1800) is addressed. Flaxman introduced William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English people English poetry, Painting, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both poetry and the visual arts of the Romanticism....
to Hayley, and after the latter had moved in 1800 to his marine hermitage at Felpham

Felpham

Felpham is a village and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. Although sometimes considered part of the greater Bognor Regis habitation it is a village and civil parish in its own right, having an area of 4.26 km? with a population of 9611 people and still growing ....
, Sussex. Blake settled near him for three years to engrave the illustrations for the Life of Cowper. This, Hayley's best known work, was published in 1803-1804 (Chichester) in 5 vols.

In 1805 he published Ballads founded on Anecdotes of Animals (Chichester), with illustrations by Blake, and in 1809 The Life of Romney. For the last twelve years of his life Hayley received an allowance for writing his Memoirs. He died at Felpham on the 12th of November 1820. Hayley's first wife died in 1797; her mind had been seriously affected. Since 1789 they had been separated. He married in 1809 Mary Welford, but they also separated after three years. He left no children.

William Hayley

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