'Tis done!-he's crown'd with a resplendent joy, 'Suspend thy tears! behold a Sov'reign rise, Thy second George! whose reign shall soon disclose All that mine gave, and heav'n in grace bestows.' He said,--again, with majesty refin'd, Up-wing'd to realms of bliss, the' ethereal mind. LIFE OF DYER. JOHN DYER was born in 1700, the second son of Robert Dyer of Aberglasney, in Carmarthenshire, a solicitor of great capacity and note. He passed through Westminster-school under the care of Dr. Friend, 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 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. It was published about his twenty-seventh year. 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 Shakspeare, descended from a brother of every body's Shakspeare." 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. "The spirit of Dyer's Fleece," says Dr. Aikin, "is truly didactic, and he has given it all the regularity which would have been expected in a prose work on the same subject. In his first book he is a breeder of sheep; in his second, a wool-stapler; in his third a weaver; and in his fourth a merchant. In all of these capacities his object seems to be serious instruction, and he leaves no part of the topic untouched. He teaches, however, like a poet, and neglects no opportunity of uniting entertainment with precept. He judiciously dwells most upon those parts which afford matter for sentiment or poetical description; and frequently digresses into collateral paths which lead to scenes of beauty and even of grandeur. He has also the merit of much local and appropriate imagery." "His Grongar Hill' is perhaps the most pleasing piece in the language, of those which aim at local description. Dyer has judiciously attempted no more than to sketch such a prospect as may be |