directed to happier models, or had his genius, like that of his friend Cowper, drunk deeply into the sublime simplicity of Scripture, elevated as he confessedly was above the far greater part of his contemporaries, he would have attained to a much prouder eminence, on the scale of poetic merit, and travelled down to posterity with a transcendent lustre.* * The daily perusal of the holy Scriptures by the author, already mentioned, was many years subsequent to the publication of his poetry. MEMOIRS OF THOMAS ALPHONSO HAYLEY, THE YOUNG SCULPTOR. PART THE FIRST. EXTENDING TO THE FIFTH OF OCTOBER, 1793. Hic pudor ingenuæ mentis, tranquillaque morum THE mild and elegant Pliny, who regarded his imperial friend Trajan as a model of justice and benevolence, seems to have been particularly delighted by the generous care of that benevolent Emperor to raise statues of honour to different examples of juvenile merit, calamitously cut off in a promising career of excellence. Perhaps biography may be rendered still more pleasing and more profitable than it has hitherto been to youth, in bestowing a due portion of praise on those young votaries of renown, who, after an early display of highly promising talents and virtues, have been soon exalted to a superior existence. This idea, and the merit of the individual who forms the subject of these pages, induce me to compose a circumstantial account of his life. Having the advantage of continual access to many manuscripts, which he had arranged himself in the nicest order, and to those of his father, I am enabled to execute the office of a very faithful biographer to an interesting character, who discovered, even in his childhood, a strong inclination to follow in the most laudable manner, the lively moral advice of Prior, "And in life's visit leave his name." Being the son of a fervent votary of the Muses, he may be allowed to begin his career as under their immediate influence, by presenting, on the completion of the first year of his infancy, to the mistress of the lovely scenes of Eartham, (which were afterwards to inspire him with more sublime conceptions), |