The regard between the poet and the musician was reciprocal. As soon as the former returned to his marine cell, he was informed, that his friend of Windsor had honoured him with a little pecuniary legacy, a circumstance which he was very far from expecting, when he composed the Epitaph. Aylward had always appeared to Hayley one of the happiest mortals whom he had ever known; and his enjoyments were supported through life by those primary pillars of happiness, industry and benevolence. His manners were very modest and engaging.

Hayley used often to exhort this worthy man to engage in extensive musical composition, till he discovered that his talents were not of the inventive kind; a discovery that did not impair their friendship, though it induced the poet to relinquish his pleasing expectations of hearing original music from Aylward, adapted to more than one extensive poetical composition, written expressly with a view of promoting the interest and honour of a musical friend.

Hayley was extremely fortunate in general concerning that important article in human life, the choice of friends. Those of his juvenile days, when friends are formed more by chance than by selection, were men of considerable intellectual powers and the purest hearts; but these favourites, Thornton, Clyfford, and Beridge, and their successors of more renown, Gibbon, Howard, and Cowper, were now all in their graves; and his surviving associate of many years, the wayward, yet beloved

Romney, was at this time sinking into a second childhood in the north of England. It was therefore a matter of serious concern to the heart of Hayley, to lose a remaining old friend, not by death, but by dissension; yet he thought it right to incur the hazard of such a loss, rather than fail to remonstrate with him on a very singular transaction, which was a source of considerable inquietude to the poet.

But, not to expatiate on an irksome topic, let us return to the time when Hayley was advancing diligently in his Life of Cowper. Eager as he was to proceed in that work, he did not fail to pay a brief poetical tribute to a worthy old domestic, whom he had settled, for the tranquillity of his latter days, in an old cottage at Eartham, and who died at that time.

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In the poet's Diary of October 1801, the following words occur. Tuesday 27th, visited in the course of the morn"ing my poor William, twice alive, and once after he expired ; derived much mournful gratification in having been providentially sent to comfort, and see the blessed release of this "affectionate and beloved old servant."

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Wednesday the 28th, an Epitaph for William early.”

ON WILLIAM METCALFE.

"To this plain grave, that Nature's hand will dress,

"That truth will honour, and affection bless,

"A kind old servant sunk; this stone may give

"His sweet and simple character to live:

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"A hand to minister, a heart to feel,

"Good-natured diligence, and sprightly zeal,

"Metcalfe! were thine, on earth-in joy's bright sphere

"Now be it thine, these blessed words to hear—

"Come my good servant,' from that Master's voice

"Who bids the living die, the dead rejoice."

The year that closed the life of one humble friend so esteemed by Hayley, afforded him another still more valuable; for it was on the 2d of June 1801, that Margaret Beke became his housekeeper at Felpham. She saved him, by her probity, from the many ruinous depredations to which a solitary studious author is exposed. At the end of his Diary for December 1801, he said, "I cannot close the

month, and the year, without sensations of gratitude to "Heaven, for having granted me faculties to proceed, as I “have, with a cheerful spirit, under many troubles, in the "prosecution of my interesting memorial of the beloved Cow"per; which, with the blessing of Heaven, I hope soon to finish in such a manner, as may obtain for me the appro"bation of the two pure spirits, according to whose conjec"tured feelings and wishes I am most anxious to fashion my "work. I mean the dear excellent bard himself, and, I trust,

his present associate in bliss, my darling child, to whom may "God in his own blessed time, most mercifully unite my spirit "for ever!" Anxiously intent as Hayley was on completing his Life of Cowper, he yet found time to compose various

little pieces of poetry towards the end of the year 1801; particularly several of the ballads founded on anecdotes relating to animals, which he printed for the emolument of the interesting artist who had settled in a cottage, as the poet's neighbour, to execute the engravings for the quarto edition of Cowper's Life. That singularly industrious man applied himself to various branches of art: he had wonderful talents for original design; and, at Hayley's suggestion, he executed some portraits in miniature very happily; particularly a portrait of Cowper's beloved relation, the Reverend Dr. Johnson, who arrived at Felpham on a kind visit to the biographer, in January 1802, a visit that enabled Hayley to collect all the anecdotes he wanted of Cowper's closing days, from the lips of his favourite kinsman and his constant attendant. The biographical narrative, so eagerly expected by the admirers of the poet, was concluded on the 23d of January, 1802; a publisher was also provided, for Mr. Johnson of St. Paul's, who had visited Felpham in a former year, was introduced to the biographer by their common friend, Mr. Edwards, once a most active and prosperous bookseller in Pall Mall. Terms were soon adjusted with the author, when Johnson, after an ineffectual contest, acquiesced in the positive requisition of Hayley to have his work printed in his native city of Chichester. The biographer was aware, that provincial printing was liable to some objections, and that it must inevitably be a source of delay in the publication; but he was zealous

for the literary credit of the city that had given him birth; and was also peculiarly anxious to befriend a printer of that city, who was worthy to print a Life of Cowper, because he felt all the excellence of his character, being himself a man of feelings uncommonly acute and delicate, with perfect integrity. Such was the late Joseph Seagrave, most cordially regarded by Hayley, who had the pain of trying ineffectually to restore him from a stroke of sudden death on the 9th of July 1808. It was in March 1802, that he began to print the Life of Cowper, and the work in two quarto volumes was in circulation before the end of the year. It was the anxious wish of the author, that one of the earliest visible copies of the performance should be presented to his highly regarded friend, Lady Hesketh; and some passages of a letter from that admirable lady, in which she describes the arrival of the anxiously expected book, and her complicated sensations concerning it, shall terminate this chapter.

"CLIFTON, Dec. 29, 1802.

“Your book shall come tied with red tape, and sealed; so you may let it rest unlooked at as long as you please.'

“An admirable arrangement in favour of the apprehensions expressed! but certainly not fulfilled au pied de la lettre : for "neither red tape nor wax was there, to throw any impediment "in the way of my curiosity, which, I own, was very strong,

to see this dear and long-expected (though much dreaded) "work! Well! but I must, though I am positively still in a tremble, tell you the matter regularly. At four o'clock yes

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