On the 20th he received a welcome present from his highly esteemed brother of Parnassus, Mr. Mundy of Derbyshire, namely, his second poem on the forest of Needwood; and he expressed his pleasure and his gratitude on the occasion, in a few verses to the bard of the forest. On the 24th of October the Diary of Hayley contains the following remarkable expression.

Read Homer, and translated his brief prayer for a wife."

BOOK THE TENTH.

FROM THE AUTUMN OF 1808 TO THE AUTUMN OF 1811.

CHAPTER I.

NEW PROSPECTS.-THE SECOND MARRIAGE OF THE POET.

HAYLEY had now passed between eight and nine years in that sequestered application, which was necessary to accomplish the peculiar wish of his heart, namely, to finish for publication, before he perceived any decay in his mental faculties, a copious biographical tribute to the memory of those very dear departed objects of his affection, Cowper, Romney, and Thomas Hayley, the young Sculptor; each of whom he thought worthy to live for ever in the kind remembrance of their country. The great success of the Life that he published of Cowper, had a most happy effect in reanimating his spirit, after the long trial he had sustained, in the lingering tortures and decease of his son. His first object, after the publication of his Cowper, was to prepare a memorial, as faithful, of that younger beloved sufferer; and upon this he worked with an inexpressible eagerness of tender

zeal, lest his own existence should terminate before he had time fully to discharge what he regarded as a duty full of pain and delight. Having completed a copious Life of that extraordinary youth, he reserved it for future revision; and to appear only as a posthumous production. The next principal object of his attention, was a Life of his intimate friend Romney, which, as the reader is already informed, was concluded in the autumn of the year 1807. He continued to retouch it at different times, and it was now advanced in the press, but with a prospect of being obliged to wait for some of the numerous engravings, with which he had resolved to adorn it.

Having thus discharged, in a great measure to his own comfort, what he called his sacred duties to the dead, he felt it expedient to provide against that dreariness of heart, which is apt to throw a gloom round the solitary recluse in the autumn and winter of life. While he was deeply engaged in his biographical compositions, he used to say, "I have not leisure "to wander from my hermitage, and look into the world in quest of a wife; but I feel a strong persuasion, that if it is really good for me to venture once more on marriage,

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that step

'Of deepest hazard, and of highest hope!'

my kind stars will conduct to my cell some compassionate

fair one, fond of books and retirement, who may be willing

to enliven, with the songs of tenderness, the solitude of a poetical hermit."

Such was the frame of mind in the recluse, when an incident occurred, that gradually seemed to promise a completion of his prophecy. This incident was a visit from an old ecclesiastical acquaintance, attended by two young ladies, Mary and Harriet Welford, daughters of an aged and retired merchant on Blackheath.

The countenance and musical talents of the elder sister made a strong impression on the sequestered poet. Their accidental visit gradually led to his second marriage on the 23d of March, 1809, an event attended with much general exultation and delight, though evidently, like the usual steps of poets in the world, rather a step of hasty affection than of deliberate prudence.