William Hayley

Born at Chichester, he was sent to Eton in 1757, and to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1762;[2] his connection with the Middle Temple, London, where he was admitted in 1766, was merely nominal.

His private means enabled Hayley to live on his patrimonial estate at Eartham, Sussex, and he retired there in 1774.

Hayley had already written occasional poems, when in 1771 his tragedy, The Afflicted Father, was rejected by David Garrick.

In the same year his translation of Pierre Corneille's Rodogune as The Syrian Queen was also declined by George Colman.

The last-mentioned work was so popular as to run to twelve or fourteen editions; together with the Triumphs of Music (Chichester, 1804) it was ridiculed by Byron in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

In 1805 he published Ballads founded on Anecdotes of Animals (Chichester), with illustrations by Blake, and in 1809 The Life of Romney.

[3] In 2007, the exhibition "Poets in the Landscape: the Romantic Spirit in British Art" curated by Simon Martin and held at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester explored Hayley's role as patron and friend of artists including William Blake, George Romney, John Flaxman and Joseph Wright of Derby.