John Dyer (1699 – 15 December 1757) was a painter and Welsh poet who became a priest in the Church of England.Shaw, Thomas B. A Complete Manual of English Literature. Ed. William Smith. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1872. 372. Print. He was most recognised for Grongar Hill, one of six early poems featured in a 1726 miscellany. Longer works published later include the less successful genre poems, The Ruins of Rome (1740) and The Fleece (1757). His work has always been more anthologised than published in separate editions, but his talent was later recognised by William Wordsworth among others.
Life and career
Youth John Dyer was the fourth of six children born to Robert and Catherine Cocks Dyer in Llanfynydd, Carmarthenshire, five miles from Grongar Hill. His exact birth date is unknown, but the earliest existing record of John Dyer dates his baptism on 13 August 1699Williams, Ralph M. Poet, Painter and Parson the Life of John Dyer. New York: Bookman Associates, 1956. 21. Print. – within fourteen days after his birth as was the tradition of the time – in Llanfynnydd parish. His grandfather was churchwarden there and his father was a highly successful solicitor in Llanfynnydd and owned several properties in the neighbourhood. Presumably for financial opportunity and greater living space for six children, the family moved in 1710 to the mansion of Aberglasney in the nearby parish of Llangathen.
Dyer was first educated in an unknown school in the countryside before attending Westminster School under Dr. Robert Freind.Williams 1956, p.25 Dyer's dislike for Westminster was chronicled in a 1714 entry in his Journal of Escapes: "Ran from school and my father, on a box of the ear being given me strolled for three or four days – found at Windsor." He retained little of what he learned, as evidenced later by his unfamiliarity with the Latin authors that were a school staple.
After Westminster School, Dyer worked in his father's office, learning the business. His talent in the field of law was evidenced by the lawsuits in which he was involved and he was the only one of four sons to have managed his property well.Williams 1956, p.30 John's father, who wanted his son to pursue a career as solicitor, subdued the poet's longing to channel his creativity through painting and writing. Ralph M. Williams comments that it was upon his return to Aberglasney "that we first begin to know something of his personality and see for the first time the conflict in him between the dreamy romantic and the practical man of business that runs through his life."Williams 1956, p.28 Having grown up among the ancient stoneworks in the Aberglasney grounds, it was not surprising that Dyer had developed an interest in antiquities and the love of nature that characterises his work.
Robert Dyer's death on 8 July 1720Lloyd vs. Dyer, P.R.O. C.11.995/14 and Dyer vs. Dyer, P.R.O., C.33.349, fol. 504 verso. ended John's apprenticeship to the law and he was not named in his father's will, releasing him from handling the lawsuit riddled estate bequeathed to his brother, also called Robert. John then left Aberglasney for London in 1720 or 1721 to pursue painting and poetry.Williams 1956, p.33
Painting and poetry In London, Dyer apprenticed himself under the artist Jonathan Richardson. Richardson's fundamental principle of painting was that all aspects of learning, from reading, observation of nature, studying works by masters in painting and writing poetry were necessary to provide artists with inspiration. As a result, Dyer retained such interests and translated his studies into verbal landscape art.Humfrey, Belinda. Writers of Wales – John Dyer. Ed. Meic Stephens, R, Brinley Jones. University of Wales Press, 1980. 11. Print His first attempt in writing Miltonic octosyllabic couplets was addressed to his mentor, "An Epistle to a Famous Painter",The Poetical Works of John Dyer, Edinburgh 1779, pp.148–50 the same measure as in his second version of Grongar Hill. It was under Richardson that Dyer met his coffee house group of friends, Thomas Edwards, Daniel Wray, George Knapton and Arthur Pond. Pond would later be referred to in The Fleece (IV. 265).
Dyer, with Richardson's blessing, sailed to Italy in 1724 to continue his studies and made his way straight to Rome, where he admired its objects of antiquity. The Pantheon was a favourite building and preoccupied his time during the trip,Longstaffe 1847, p. 266; Willmott, p.30. while the Colosseum and the Baths of Caracalla were also held in high regard.Willmott, p. 29. Among sculptures and reliefs, he notes the Hercules, the Apollo, the "Venus de Medici," the Laocoön group, Trajan's Column, the temple of Pallas, the arches of Titus and Constantine and the Borghese Dancers (now in the Louvre).Longstaffe 1847, p.266; Willmott, p.vii. Such were the inspirations or objects of interest in Dyer's poem The Ruins of Rome, written in 1740. But though he appreciated the beauties about him, his staunch Protestantism was appalled by what he regarded as the superstitious practices of Catholicism: "God of our Fathers, keep us from the ways of these foul hirelings," he exclaimed in a poetic fragment written at the time.Wilmott 1855, "Written at St Peter's, p.16-17
While there, Dyer fell ill with a malarial fever caught in the Campagna and began to contemplate his future. Resuming his journey northwards, he visited the ruins of Otricoli, where he found inspiration for his poem signifying this shift of mood, "Written at Ocriculum in Italy, 1725".Wilmott 1855, pp.18–21 Continuing on his journey to Florence, his visits to museums and buildings there instigated a shift in his interests from the classical to the Renaissance period to create one of his few surviving paintings, a copy of Antonio da Correggio's masterpiece, "Madonna Adoring the Christ Child."
On Dyer's return, a selection of six of his poems were published in Richard Savage's Miscellaneous Poems and Translations (1726), which largely consisted of the work of the coterie that had gathered about Aaron Hill, one of those literary groupings typical of the 18th century whose work interconnected and was often cross-referential. This was evident in the many 'collected' editions of Dyer's poems published after his death that were prefaced by poems addressed to him by these friends, in answer to or answered by the shorter poems of Dyer's placed at the end.As, for example, in the Edinburgh edition of 1779 Thus Dyer's poem "To Mr Savage, son of the late Earl Rivers", exhorting him to bear up under misfortune, is answered by Savage's "An epistle to My John Dyer in answer to his from the country". And Dyer's paean to living in country obscurity, "To a friend in town", becomes a Horatian exchange when complemented by Aaron Hill's "The Choice".
Another cluster of poems about Dyer's portrait of Martha Fowke, who went under the name of Clio in the group,Christine Gerrard, Aaron Hill: The Muses' Projector, 1685–1750, Oxford University 2003, pp.61–80 is particularly rich. Both Dyer's "A Country Walk" and "The Inquiry" mention her with singular devotion. So also does "To Clio from Rome" (which remained uncollected in 18th century editions) with its reference to "the wreathed urn among the vines, whose form my pencil now designs."The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse, 2009, pp.166–7 This comes aptly, since Dyer had recently painted her. Martha's reply apologises for her tardiness and compliments both his poetic and artistic tributes: "Your claim demands the bays in double wreath, Your poems lighten and your pictures breathe". Savage too paid his tribute "To Mr John Dyer, occasioned by seeing his picture of the celebrated Clio" in which, going beyond outward likeness, "You eye the Soul".The Poetical Works of Richard Savage, Edinburgh 1780, pp. 157–159 The most that Dyer himself will admit in his epistle "To a Famous Painter" (his teacher Jonathan Richardson), also written from Rome, is the modest confession that "As yet I but in verse can paint".
Several later poems that only exist in manuscript were addressed to different ladies. His epistle "To Aurelia",The Poems of John Dyer, Welsh Library 1903, p. 29 another member of the coterie, is an appeal to "leave the smoky Town" with him for some rural retreat. Other poems cover pseudonymous flirtations with a Myra and a Celia.Longstaffe 1847, pp.425–6
Later life Following his return to England after a year and half in Italy, and then the publication of his early poems in 1726, Dyer briefly returned to Aberglasney, where he became estranged from his brother Robert. The next several years were spent between London and Herefordshire or on painting trips. In 1734 he restored to profitability a rundown farm belonging to an aunt and spent several more years as a gentleman farmer in other counties.Gerrard, Christine. "John Dyer (1699–1757)." Eighteenth-Century Poetry An Annotated Anthology (Blackwell Annotated Anthologies). 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Blackwell Limited, 2004. 239. Print. It was at this period too that Dyer began writing again. From then dates the anecdotal pastoral "My Ox Duke".The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse, 2009, p.171 He was also on the lookout for a suitable subject for a longer poem and began work on the unfinished fragment "The Cambro-Briton".Wilmott 1855, pp.22–3 Eventually, however, he fell back on the fruits of his Italian travels, published as The Ruins of Rome in 1740. It was only much later in his georgic The Fleece (1757) that he put to use the insight into the wool industry that he gained as a farmer.
The master theme of The Ruins of Rome had already suggested itself to Dyer in his earlier "Written at Ocriculum in Italy, 1725". Written in a mannered imitation of Miltonic blank verse, it opens with Dyer painting among the ruins, "studious to excel, of praise and fame ambitious". As night falls, a seer comes to remind him of his mortality by pointing to the downfallen architecture of the past. Instead he is exhorted to learn from the work of the eternal Creator spread in beauty across the skies and dedicate his life to goodness. The poem's religious conclusions were also to find expression in two unpublished poems of the 1750s, "A Night Prospect written on Lincoln Heath" and "On the Destruction of Lisbon".Wilmott 1855, pp.113, 115–6
Little is known about his paintings all this time, for most have been lost. Apart from family portraits attributed to him,See two at Art UK two others on religious subjects are reported. One was a "Last Supper" at Newtown Church,David Simons, A Vision of Pengwerne, Shrewsbury 1841, p.149 the other a head of Christ owned by another family member.Wilmott 1855 p.xxxi In 1741 Dyer travelled to Worcester to paint the portrait of Bishop John Hough and while there was persuaded to seek ordination in the Church of England. In September of that year he was created a deacon and by October was made priest of Catthorpe in Leicestershire, a position he held for the next nine years.Brackett, Virginia. "Dyer, John." Facts on File Companion to British Poetry 17th and 18th Centuries. New York 2008, pp.136–37
Now Dyer married a 26-year-old widow, Sarah Ensor Hawkins (said to be a descendant of Shakespeare), with whom he had several children. In 1751 patrons found him a more prosperous living in Belchford, Lincolnshire, and in the following year he ministered to Coningsby as well, later still moving to Kirkby on Bain, also in Lincolnshire. In 1752 he had been made a Bachelor of Laws of Cambridge and by now had begun writing The Fleece, on the title page of which the initials LL.B followed his name.