author:John Dyer

“ It is obvious that Dyer must have been much out of doors. He probably knew South Wales intimately. He had a short, practical experience of agriculture, and a love of animals. At the same time he was not a hearty out-door philosopher. His health was always indifferent, and the Campagna had injured it. He seems to have had an amiable, constitutional melancholy, and must have known the angrier moods of that "sweet enemy"; for, in 1729, he is said to have written his epitaph. He called himself "old and sickly" in middle age ”

“ Perhaps Lincolnshire was not altogether consoling to one who had known the Towy valley. His last work was full of reminiscences of Wales. At Coningsby, he was busy with his longest poem, "The Fleece." He composed laboriously; and Akenside, who was giving him medical advice, helped him in the work. It is his biggest effort, and when we consider the subject, his greatest success. A very large proportion of dulness is to be expected from Dyer on wool; but it does not obscure the excellence of his design; even where his thought is rustic, the style is pure; in some places he is nearly grand ”

“ In 1751, he left Catthorpe for Belchford in Lincolnshire, to which he was appointed by Lord Hardwicke, Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the recommendation of Daniel Wray, Deputy Teller; and in the same year, Sir John Heathcote presented him to the living of Coningsby in Lincolnshire, and in 1755 to Kirky-on-Bane in the same county, in place of Belchford. ”