HAYLEY, William (1745-1820), the friend and biographer of Cowper, and grandson of William Hayley, dean of Chichester, was born in that city on the 9th November 1745. On account of mismanagement during a fever which he had while in a boarding school at Kingston, he was reduced to such prostration that the preservation of his life appeared to present only the promise of hopeless lameness and idiocy, but by careful nursing his health was gradually completely restored, and after some years’ private tuition he pursued his studies at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1766 he procured a certificate of admission to the Middle Temple, London, but a short trial of legal studies was sufficient to dissipate the unexperienced preference which he had cherished for the profession of law. After his marriage in 1769 he stayed for some years chiefly in London, but in 1774 he retired to his patrimonial estate of Eartham in Sussex, resolved to spend the remainder of his days in rural quiet, with only such an amount of literary activity as might defy ennui and give a zest to life. Hayley made more than one attempt to succeed as a dramatic author, but first won fame by his poetical Essays on Painting, History, and Epic Poetry, and by his poem the Triumph of Temper. The success of these poems was partly attributable to the general dearth of poetic talent at the time, but they had also certain external qualities fitted to secure for them at least a temporary popularity; and his notes to his poetical essays also displayed very extensive reading, and exerted considerable influence in directing attention in England to the literature of Italy and Spain. On the death of Warton, Fayley was offered the laureateship, but declined it. In 1792 he made the acquaintance of the poet Cowper; and ...