THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

ART. I.-Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Hayley, Esq. the Friend and Biographer of Cowper, written by himself with Extracts from his private Correspondence, and unpublished Poetry; and Memoirs of his Son Thomas Alphonso Hayley, the young Sculptor. Edited by John Johnson, LL.D. Rector of Yaxham with Welborne, in Norfolk. 4to. 2 vols.

IT

T is stated in the preface to these volumes, that Mr. Hayley received a very considerable annuity during the last twelve years of his life, as the price of his own Memoirs, which he was to leave in a fit state for publication. Many an unfortunate author has found, in the prospect of posthumous fame, a flattering unction for the disappointment of ill founded pretensions; and some, of the highest order, have contented themselves with the sure and certain hope of it, under the indifference or injustice of their contemporaries. But Hayley is perhaps the only person who ever dealt with his posthumous reputation as a post-obit, and converted it into a present income. Both parties might reasonably expect, that the auto-biography of one who, during many years, was the most fashionable of living poets, would, in no inconsiderable degree, excite the attention of what is called the reading public. And even if Hayley had been less conspicuous in literature himself, the intimacy which he was known to have enjoyed with men so eminent in different ways, as Romney, Gibbon, and Cowper, might have authorized such an expectation. He had also obtained some popular celebrity as a biographer, owing to the manner in which his name had been connected with that of Cowper: for, although his life of that most interesting and amiable man bore abundant marks of the constitutional feebleness which appears in all his writings, the materials were of such sterling value, that they made the book one of the most popular and delightful of our times. That Life, like his Life of Romney, was as remarkable for what it suppressed, as for what it communicated. These, however, are cases in which the sin of omission ought not to be severely condemned. It is to Hayley's honour, rather than to his dispraise, that he exercised a scrupulous tenderness towards the memory of his friends, which he did not think it necessary to observe concerning himself, when he became his own biographer. The preface to these memoirs informs us, that the Editor has abstracted some pasyol. XXXI. no. 62.—Q.R.

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sages,

Some

sages, which, if an opportunity of advising had been afforded him, he is persuaded the author himself would have omitted.' thing concerning these passages will be said in the proper place. Suffice it here to observe, that, in thus exercising his discretion, the editor has acted like a true friend, and with a just regard both to the living and the dead.

The Memoirs are written in the third person, a less natural, and therefore a less pleasing form, than if the first personal pronoun. had been allowed its proper place. They have the less excusable fault that they are written as if the author affected throughout not to appear his own biographer: matters of fact are stated hesitatingly, and as if by inference from other things; and by this useless artifice of style, one charm of auto-biography is destroyed. The truth remains; but the stamp which should authenticate it, is wanting. We have, indeed, seldom seen a book which more completely disappoints the expectations it might reasonably raise; so cold and feeble is the manner, and so little does it contain of those literary reminiscences with which the author's mind must have been stored. We may gather from it, however, an account, amusing in some points, and not uninstructive in others, of one so conspicuous in his day, that he must always hold a place in the history of English literature. We may show what were the real services which he rendered to letters, and to what his disproportionate reputation was owing, without attempting to revive that which in the course of time and of nature is defunct. To slay the slain were a work of useless severity, even if the memory of a gentleman and a scholar were not entitled to respect from all who have any pretensions themselves

to either of those characters.

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The Memoirs begin, as it was fit they should, with some account of his family. Thomas, his father, the only son of Thomas Hayley, Dean of Chichester, was educated at Exeter College, and lived as a private gentleman in Chichester. His first wife was the heiress of an opulent merchant. She died early, without issue, leaving him in circumstances' sufficiently affluent to disregard the article of fortune in his second marriage.' No woman had ever a juster title to the affectionate labours of a biographer,' than the lady whom he afterwards addressed and married. She was the daughter of Colonel Yates, who had represented the city of Chichester in parliament, but by the ruinous expense of a contested election, and by improvident habits, was deplorably reduced in fortune, when this daughter grew up. She went, therefore, to reside with a maternal aunt, wife of the then Bishop of Ely, Dr. Gooch, a prelate,' says Hayley, who might have said, with Cardinal de Retz, that he had l'ame peut-être la moins ecclésiastique qui fût dans l'univers.' In those days, church preferment was often most unwisely and un

warrantably

warrantably bestowed; but if the Bishop had neither the disposi tion nor the learning, which ought to have been considered as the indispensable qualifications for his high office, he possessed extraordinary talents, and delighted in forming the character of his niece. Her situation, however, was by no means happy. The advantages which she might have enjoyed from his kindness, and from the society which frequented his house, (for he was a man of the finest manners, and the most engaging vivacity of mind,) were in great measure frustrated by the penuriousness of her aunt, and she was often reduced to keep her chamber under a pretext of indisposition, from the absolute want of the most common articles of dress. To relieve herself from this pitiable dependence, and at the same time afford some assistance to her parents, she had almost determined upon assuming a fictitious name, and trying her fortune upon the stage; a perilous adventure, for which, however, her person, countenance, voice, and elocution, appeared to qualify her in a singular degree. While she was painfully hesitating whether to enter upon a mode of life, which, in those days, was attended both with degradation and danger to the female character, Mr. Hayley solicited her hand in marriage, and was strongly seconded by all her friends. His person, talents, character, and situation in life were all in his favour; the lady, however, feared some danger from his extreme generosity, and his propensity to indulge in expensive pursuits; and she made it the condition of her acceptance, that, on his marriage, he should diminish instead of increasing his equipage; a stipulation the more remarkable, as she herself was far from being an enemy to splendour.' After the day had been fixed, she was seized with the small-pox; she recovered from this frightful disease without injury, and in the year 1740, they married, and took up their abode in their native city of Chichester, where William their second son was born on the 29th of October (old style,) 1745.

Hobbes was frightened into the world by the Spanish Armada, and his constitutional timidity has been ascribed to the original panic which became, as it were, part of his nature. Hayley might have been frightened out of it, if his mother had not possessed that presence of mind which is among the best gifts of nature. The French were at that time expected to make a descent upon the coast of Sussex; and just after the birth of this babe, came news which were entirely believed, that they had actually landed at Pevensey, and were marching to Chichester. Mr. Hayley would immediately have removed his wife and child to Portsmouth, as a place of security; but the mother refused to hazard her infant's life by such a removal. The invaders, she said, might very probably never reach Chichester, and if they did, she had confidence enough

in

in their humanity to think it impossible that they should injure a woman in her situation. But though the danger to which her own life, more than that of the infant, would have been exposed, was thus averted by her courageous composure, the alarm of invasion in its consequences produced great and fatal injury to this family. Mr. Hayley had raised a company called the Chichester Blues, and exerted himself with so much zeal and success in the military preparations which it was necessary to make, that he received a letter of thanks from the Duke of Newcastle, and the offer of a baronetcy. The title he was prudent enough to decline. But in supporting the military character, he was led into impru dent expenses, and into those habits of convivial intemperance, which were then the bane and the disgrace of society. Confiding in the strength of his constitution, he would, after a night of intemperance, instead of seeking to recover himself by sleep, plunge into a cold bath, and by that means prepare himself for the business of the day. The admonitions and entreaties of his excellent wife were of no avail; but her apprehensions were soon verified for this desperate imprudence brought on a pulmonary disease. At a time when her eldest child was lying in a dangerous fever, Mrs. Hayley was obliged to leave it, that she might attend a dying husband to Bristol Hot Wells. There he expired, after lingering a few weeks, and by his own desire was buried at Eartham in Sussex, a beautiful and sequestered village, where he had purchased a small estate, and built a diminutive villa, to which he sometimes sent his children for the advantage of better air. Mr. Hayley was one of those men for whom it is a misfortune to have been born rich. Had it been necessary for him to follow some profession, he had abilities which might have raised him to distinction; and in the pursuit of fortune, he would have disciplined and enriched his mind; whereas, in the enjoyment of hereditary wealth, his talents were dissipated. They were such as rendered him capable of enjoying it worthily. His son, who was in his own day better read than most of, his contemporaries, says, that his common-place books contain proofs of extensive study. was enough of a musician to compose a country dance, and enough of a poet to translate a sportive ode of Horace into spirited English verse.' And he had a passion for sculpture, painting, and architecture, The latter pursuit led him into some whimsi, cal expenses: he left at his death an additional apartment to his house unfinished; but of so singular a construction that it puzzled all persons to conceive what it was intended for; and his son could only conjecture that it was to be a diminutive representa tion of the great mosque of St. Sophia, at Constantinople!

• He

He died in 1748, leaving two children. The eldest, a most promising

promising boy, survived him only two years, falling a victim to the then imperfect practice of inoculation. Both children would have been inoculated at the same time, if one of their guardians had not suggested to the mother that it was risking too much to hazard the lives of both at once. The survivor had escaped even a more pitiable death in his earliest infancy. Mr. Hayley would not allow his wife to nurse the infant, lest it should injure the beauty of her form, a motive which, the author justly remarks, ought never to be mentioned without reprehension.' The woman who was hired to perform a mother's office was so deficient in the vital treasure, (it would be a pity to defraud the reader of this flower of speech,) that the poor child was nearly starved to death before the cause of his wasting away was discovered.

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Left now with an only child and a diminished fortune, Mrs. Hayley removed to London, and placed the boy at a small school of considerable reputation at Kingston, under a master by name Woodeson, a person who had the honour of reckoning George Steevens and Gibbon among his scholars. When his mother had taken her leave of him and left him there for the first time among strangers, the child, instead of joining any playfellows, sate down under a tree alone in the desolation of his heart, and wept. He always remembered the kindness with which his master's daughter came to cheer and caress him. Worse evils, however, than those which were in store for him, could hardly have arisen from actual desertion. A dreadful fever broke out in the school; the mistress, relying upon her own experience and an ignorant apothecary, tampered with it too long; and when Mrs. Hayley, on being told that her son was slightly indisposed, sent a man-servant on whom she could rely to bring her an exact account of the state in which he was, his report was, that she must not only visit him herself, but take a physician with her, or there would be little chance of saving his life. To Kingston accordingly she hastened, with Dr. Heberden and with William's nurse. They found him in such a condition, as much from mismanagement as disease, that, when Dr. Heberden departed, he spoke to the nurse in private, and said he had promised to return on the morrow, but that this was only to relieve Mrs. Hayley's anxiety, for his opinion was that the child would not be alive so long; indeed, he added, you can hardly wish him to live. And he requested that, if the little sufferer should expire, as he thought must be the case, during the night, a messenger might be sent early in the morning to apprize him of it, as he could not leave London that day without extreme inconvenience. To remove the child was impossible; and, for days and weeks, the mother and nurse watched over their little wreck of a Inuman being.' A more pitiable case can hardly have been re

corded,