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THE

UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE. MAGAZINE.

N° XLV.-VOL. VIII.] For AUGUST, 1807.

[NEW SERIES.

"We shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any o her cause, if we can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth."-DR. JOHNSON.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

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WILLIAM HAYLEY, Esq. was very young, and the care of his THE HE difficulties of contemporary education devolved on his mother, a biography are so striking, that duty which she discharged with abithey need scarcely be adverted to. lity. This maternal tenderness Mr. The historian of the dead, and above Hayley adverted to in the fourth episall of the distant dead, may indeed the of the Essay on Epic Poetry :" have his judgment, his knowledge, the lines begin

smil'd,

And frown'd with far on thy poetic child;
Pleas'd, yet alarmi'd, when in his boyish
He sigh'd in numbers, or he laugh'd in

time,

in rhyme," &c.

These lines in their spirit are an evident imitation of Pope's beautiful couplets.

or his taste impeached, but malignancy "O thou fond spirit, who with pride hast itself scorns to arraign the purity of his motives; and, though weak minds may seem to refer every thing that is objectionable to an illaudible impulse, yet common sense rejects the puerility of the imputation and exonerates the accused. It appears, indeed, so obvious, that hatred or enmity can find no place in the breast of him who sits down to delineate the cha"Meler the tender office long engage," &c. racters of past times, that it may justly excite our wonder to behold but, in their expressions, they seem any so infatuated as to think other to resemble more strongly another wise. But this is not the case with passage of the same author. Comthe chronicler of living merit; if he paratively speaking, they are inferior presume to censure, he is envious; if to both. The third line seems to he applaud, he is servile. The ap- countenance the idea that he discoprehension of these disingenuous vered very early a propensity for poecharges may deter feeble and tran- try. quil men from following the unbiassed dictates of their mind: with us, however, it is no such thing; we should disdain to utter a falsehood, but we should equally disdain to swerve from the strict voice of what we deem the truth. These observations are not made with any particuJar reference to the object of the present memoir, but as an incidenial remark that may well precede the biography of a living individual,

He was sent, at an early age, to a school, in or near Kingston-uponThames; from which he was soon removed, on account of illness, and put under the instruction of a private tutor, who prepared him for Eton, whence he went to the University of Cambridge, and entered himself at Trinity Hall there in the year 1762.

Nothing has been recorded of the progress or nature of Mr. Hayley's studies: it is probable that, without William Hayley was born in Chi- devoting his attention to any partionchester, in the year 1745. He was lar branch, he allowed himself to feed the son of Thomas Hayley, Esq. and with indiscriminate voracity upon all the grandson of the dean of Chiches that offered itself: a mode of reading ter. His mother was Mary, daugh- most agreeable to the mind, perhaps; ter of Colonel Yates, representative of but not best qualified for producing that city, from the year 1731 to valuable results. 1741. He lost his father while he UNIVERSAL MAG. VOL. VIII.

This year, however, beheld him
N

was

commence his literary career. An ciously employed. In the struggles "Ode on the Birth of the Prince of which SERENA Sustains, and to winch Wales," made its appearance in the she rises superior only by the interpoCambridge Collection. We have sition of Sophrosyne, her guardian never seen this production; but we sprite, we are indeed amused but have been informed that the feelings not instructed; we are neither surof boyish exultation, with which it prised at her fortitude, nor incited to once contemplated, have long emulation, because we find her contisince subsided. Mr. Hayley is him- nually acting under the power of an self among the foremost to ridicule invisible being: and because we see its defects. that, as a mere mortal, she is as weak In 1760, he quitted the University, and intemperate as any other girl, and went to Edinburgh on a visit to Had she been tranquil after her fasome of his acquaintance, students of ther's imperious command, from the physic there. In 1769, he married filial consideration that it was his wish, the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Ball, and that that was motive enough to dean of Chichester, and from whom induce her willingly to submit; or, he has since been separated by death. had she triumphed over the scandal Upon his marriage with Miss Ball, vented against her in the newspaper, he resided in the metropolis for a few from a noble consciousness of virtue, years, whence he retired to his native and from the just reflection that cacounty, and settled at Eartham, a si- lumny unnoticed will of itself fade tuation remarkably healthy and ru- away, this might have been producral, and which he improved and em- tive of the most desirable conse bellished. He afterwards removed to quences; it might probably have stiFelpham, near Bognor, which is his mulated the reader to a similar equapresent residence. bility of mind, and have convinced

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Mr. Hayley's second attempt as an him that, as it was amiable so it author was in 1778, in his thirty- was attainable. But, as we behold third year, when he published his Serena moved to anger on every tryEssay on Painting." The merits ing occasion, and sometimes upon the of this work have been sufficiently point of bursting forth into boisterous canvassed, and the general opinion, passion, our admiration of her is lost, as it has now subsided into a silent decision, seems not to place it in a very exalted station.

when we find her restored to peace, not by the ascendancy of reason and good sense, but by the dextrous interposition of her aerial monitor. The moral is effectually destroyed.

In 1780, appeared his "Essay on History," a work more fascinating and more extensively interesting than In 1782, Mr. Hayley published his the former. It furnished a new spe- "Essay on Epic Poetry," a work, of cimen of composition to the country, which, as we have not read it, we and many of the characters were feli- cannot speak. Soon after this ap citously executed. The versification peared his dramatic productions. The was flowing and musical, and some failure of Dryden might have shewn passages spirited and eloquent. that riming plays are not suited to Soon afterwards followed the the genius of our language. In every "Triumphs of Temper," the most case, indeed, they are so unnatural, popular of all Mr. Hayley's writings, so obviously hostile to the supposed It displays more fancy, more execu- reality of the drama, that it may be tion, and greater judgment, than his wondered any nation can be found to other productions Yet it always ap- cherish them by their applause. peared to us as possessing one very What, for example, can be more eminent defect: its moral is weak- preposterous and absurd, than to see ened, if not totally destroyed, by the one character quit the stage with a machinery of the poem. Mr. Hay- line, to which the next who enters Jey has super-induced the agency of finds a rime, though he is supposed spirits, a thing which can incur no to be ignorant that the former one censure as the accompaniment of a has been uttered. This frequently ocmock neroic poem; but as a means curs in French plays, and particularly to enforce a moral, it was injudi- in the comedies of Moliere.

The life of Mr. Hayley has been try is indebted to him for the check one that affords but few materials for he gave to the cruel and malignant biography. Passed in elegant retire- designs of the Pitt and Melville facment and in the placid pursuits of li- tions. But how has he been treated terature, its events have been too uni- for this manly conduct! He had been form, too simple, and too unambi- stigmatised by the Duke of Portland tious to merit to be recorded. As a all over the kingdom. The stigma man, praise seems to have been una- returns to the Duke: the Baronet nimous in his favour; he has been is honoured by the disgraceful atuniformly represented as a liberal, tempt to prevent him from bringing polite, and benevolent character. The to light the hidden works of darkmildness of his disposition has been ness. Well, however, might he comshewn with great advantage to him- plain of such treatment; and he self, in the peaceful replication which expostulated with the house with he has made to the attack of Mr. proper indignation, addressing the Cumberland. Here we must indeed speaker in the following manner:say, that he is eminently superior to his accuser.

In 1802, and subsequently, Mr. Hayley appeared as the biographer of Cowper. In what manner he has discharged the task is well known. The amiable poet, but gloomy religionist, has received bright honours at the hand of his friend; their names are jointly consecrated to posterity.

As a poet Mr. Hayley appears to be guided less by inspiration than discipline. In his writings we seldom find those bursts of genius, those splendid irradiations of intellect which adorn and dignify the pages of the true poet. All his verses are smooth, elegant, and harmonious; his thoughts are just and sensible; but both the one and the other seem deficient in vigour, force, and variety. We close the book, nor wish to open it again; we have been amused in our progress, but neither charmed nor enraptured: it is well observed by his illustrious friend (Cowper) that writers of this class "are generally as phlegmatic as they are correct." The genius of Hayley is like his character-mild, elegant, and interesting.

Sir FRANCIS BURDETT, Bart.

[Continued from page 8.]
HE nature of the prison in Cold

"Members of this House, I believe, Sir, have not often been used to treat each other as I have been treated; but, if I am mistaken, and if the conduct held towards me is a handsome one, the minister, and those who have assisted him in it, are welcome to the whole merit of it. But, Sir, why all this anxiety to take out of my hands, and to stifle any real enquiry in the practices of this prison, of so novel an establishment in the land? How happens it, that, as soon as I gave notice of a motion upon the subject, I am instantly held up to the world as an object of odium, stigmatized by one secretary of state, my conduct condemned unheard, and without any examination, even of those members of this House who accompanied me in my visit to the prison, and, by what legal authority I am still to learn, excluded from visiting any prison in England? How comes it to pass, that three honourable members, who never before appear to have thought of an inquiry, become all at once so very solicitous and hasty to move for a committee of enquiry? Themselves, perhaps, can explain it. But I can explain the motive of the minister and secretary of state for wishing to prevent any real inquiry. Because a fouler premeditated system of iniquity never existed in any nation upon earth; and such, I trust, with the as

tention; and we see from the report appear, to the confusion even of those of the House of Commons, that Sir faces which are not accustomed to Francis Burdett was completely justi- blush. The base and impotent atfied in his call on the House to take tempt to criminate me, I shall for the it into consideration. Without him still more flagrant abuses would have prevailed in this prison, and the coun

present pass over, contenting myself with barely stating, that I visited the prison three times, and should have

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