William Hayley

Notable among Cowper's other friends were the Rev John Newton (a former slave-trader who since his conversion had become a hellfire Evangelical preacher), Lady Austen (who set him the writing task commemorated in the title...

Her father had cherished a never-executed project for a history of ancient Irish literature. She had issued Proposals for this work the year before publication. The Houghton Library copy of the Proposals incorporates a...

She began her project as a money-earning one, but was later able to declare that the proceeds would go to charity. A further motive was patriotic and nationalistic: to counter the English (even, sometimes, the...

Although HMB was provoked to write by William Hayley 's unpleasant Philosophical, Historical and Moral Essay on Old Maids, 1785, she gives a mixed message. This begins with an epigraph drawn from Elizabeth Hamilton

Friends of WB included William Hayley (who provided his cottage at Felpham, but with whom Blake broke after their years as neighbours) and Henry Crabb Robinson , who published a critical essay about him in...

The poems present human shifts of mood and quirks of feeling. They are sensitively observed and charmingly written. The only modern poets she yet knew of to admire, JB said later, were William Hayley and...