John Dyer was born in Llanfynydd, Caermarthenshire. After abandoning a career in law to become a painter he studied with Pope's friend Jonathan Richardson, painted portraits, and traveled in Italy. Dyer began a third career when he took orders in 1741. While his poetical works were overshadowed by those of James Thomson, Dyer once had a respectable reputation as a mid-century poet and romantic bellwether. A Whig latitudinarian, he exchanged criticism with Mark Akenside and verses with Richard Savage; Dyer seems to have been liked and admired by all who knew him.
TEXT RECORDS:
1726Grongar Hill. [Couplets.]
1726Grongar Hill. [Stanzas.]
PUBLICATIONS:
The ruins of Rome: a poem. 1740.
The fleece: a poem in four books. 1757.
Poems. 1761.
Poetical works. 1765.
Poems, ed. R. A. Wilmott. 1855.
Poems, ed. Edward Thomas. 1903.
Grongar Hill, ed. Richard C. Boys. 1941.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Welsh
Anglican
Westminster School
Cambridge University
LL.B
painter
clergyman
poet
Dr. Mark Akenside
Robert Dodsley
William Duncombe
Thomas Edwards
Countess of Hertford
Aaron Hill
Richard Savage
James Thomson
Rev. Joseph Warton
Philip Yorke
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; DLB.
"Ruins of Rome" The Champion (8 March 1740); John Wesley, Moral and Sacred Poems (1744); Robert Dodsley, Collection of Poems (1748-58); "A Criticism on Dyer's Grongar-Hill" London Magazine NS 1 (August 1783) 111-13; letters in John Duncombe, ed. Letters of Eminent Persons (1783); Bell's Poets of Great Britain (1776-82); Samuel Johnson, Life in Works of the English Poets (1779-81); Pearch, Supplement to Dodsley's Collection (1768-83); "Anecdotes of Mr. Dyer" Westminster Magazine 11 (March 1783) 127-28; John Scott of Amwell, in Critical Essays (1785); "Memoirs of John Dyer" Universal Magazine 92 (April 1793) 241-43 [portrait]; Roach's Beauties of the Poets (1794); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); Nathan Drake, "On the Fleece of Dyer" Literary Hours (1798); "Literary Amusements: Grongar Hill" European Magazine 47 (May 1805) 357-62; "The Rev. John Dyer" European Magazine 52 (August 1807) 102-03; Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); "Literary Garden: The Fleece" European Magazine 72 (October 1817) 304-05; Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Ezekiel Sanford, British Poets (1819); John Aikin, Select Works of the British Poets (1820); "Grongar Hill" The Kaleidoscope NS 3 (18 March 1823) 303; William Hazlitt, Select British Poets (1824); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); George B. Cheever, Studies in Poetry ... Elegant Extracts (1830); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); G. Greever, "The Two Versions of Grongar Hill" JEGP 14 (1917) 274-81; Old Westminsters (1928); Helen Sard Hughes, "John Dyer and the Countess of Hertford" Modern Philology 27 (1930) 311-20; Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1939); Grongar Hill, R. C. Boys, ed (1941); Ralph M. Williams, "Thomson and Dyer: Poet and Painter" in The Age of Johnson: Essays Presented to C. B. Tinker (1949); Ralph M. Williams, Poet, Painter, and Parson: the Life of Dyer (1956); Dobree, OHEL (1959); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. John Dyer:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. John Dyer:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)