1756, he had a fon and three daughters living.

His ecclefiaftical provision was a long time but flender. His first His first patron, Mr. Harper, gave him, in 1741, Calthorp in Leicesterthire of eighty pounds a year, on which he lived ten years, and then exchanged it for Belchford in Lincolnshire of feventy-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 expences, took away the profit.

In 1757 he published the Fleece, his greatest poetical work; of which I will not suppress a ludicrous ftory. Dodfley the bookfeller was one day mentioning it to a critical vifiter, with more expectation of fuccefs than the other could easily admit. In the conversation the author's age was afked; and being reprefented as advanced in life, He will, faid the critick, be buried in woollen.

He

He did not indeed long furvive that publication, nor long enjoy the increase of his preferments; for in 1758 he died.

Dyer is not a poet of bulk or dignity fufficient 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 fo pleafing, the images which they raise fo welcome to the mind, and the reflections of the writer fo confonant to the general fenfe 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 lefs, and the title raises greater expectation than the performance gratifies. Some paffages, however, are conceived with the mind of a poet; as when, in the neighbourhood of dilapidating Edifices, he fays,

-At dead of night

The hermit oft, 'midft his orisons, hears, Aghaft, the voice of Time difparting towers.

Of The Fleece, which never became po** pular, and is now univerfally neglected, I VOL. IV.

Y

can

can fay little that is likely to recall it to at tention. The woolcomber and the poet appear to me fuch difcordant natures, that an attempt to bring them together is to couple the ferpent with the fowl. When Dyer, whose mind was not unpoetical, has done his utmoft, by interefting his reader in our native commodity, by interfperfing rural imagery, and incidental digreffions, by cloathing small images in great words, and by all the writer's arts of delusion, the meannefs naturally adhering, and the irreverence habitually annexed to trade and manufacture, fink him under infuperable oppreffion; and the disguft which blank verse, encumbering and encum. bered, fuperadds to an unpleafing fubject, foon repels the reader, however willing to be pleafed.

Let me however honeftly report whatever may counterbalance this weight of cenfure. I have been told that Akenfide, who, upon a poetical question, has a right to be heard, faid, "That he would regulate his opinion

of the reigning tafte by the fate of Dyer's "Fleece; for, if that were ill received, he "fhould not think it any longer reasonable to expect fame from excellence.”

3

SHEN

SHEN STONE.

ILL

WIL IAMSHENSTONE, the fon

of Thomas Shenftone and Anne Pen, was born in November 1714, at the Leafowes in Hales-Owen, one of those infulated diftricts which, in the divifion of the kingdom, was appended, for fome reafon not now difcoverable, to a diftant county; and which, though furrounded by Warwickshire and Worcestershire, belongs to Shropshire, though perhaps thirty miles diftant from any other part of it.

He learned to read of an old dame, whom his of the School-mistress has delivered to pofterity; and foon received fuch delight

poem

from books, that he was always calling for fresh entertainment, and expected that when any of the family went to market a new book fhould be brought him, which when it came, was in fondness carried to bed and laid by him. It is faid, that when his request had been neglected, his mother wrapped up a piece of wood of the fame form, and pacified him for the night.

As he grew older, he went for a while to the Grammar-fchool in Hales-Owen, and was placed afterwards with Mr. Crumpton, an eminent school-mafter at Solihul, where he distinguished himself by the quickness of his progrefs.

When he was young (June 1724) he was deprived of his father, and foon after (August 1726) of his grandfather; and was, with his brother, who died afterwards unmarried, left to the care of his grandmother, who managed the eftate.

From fchool he was fent in 1732 to Pembroke-College in Oxford, a society which for half a century has been eminent for English poetry