familiar to him, throughout his poems. The description of the owl in the
lines entitled Retirement, he used to say, was drawn from nature. It has
more that appearance than any thing else he has written, and pleases
accordingly.

Between his systems in poetry and philosophy, some exchange might have
been made with advantage to each. In the former, he counted general
ideas for nearly all in all. (_See his Essay on Poetry and Music,_ p.
431.) In the latter, he had not learnt to generalize at all; but would
have rested merely in fact and experience.

FOOTNOTES
[1] Philosophical Arrangements, c. xvii. p. 409, 8vo. ed.
[2] Hermes, p. 9, 8vo. ed. The same writer again thus defines the word.
"By the most excellent science is meant the science of causes, and,
above all others, of causes efficient and final, as these
necessarily imply pervading reason and superintending wisdom. This
science as men were naturally led to it from the contemplation of
effects, which effects were the tribe of beings natural or physical,
was, from being thus subsequent to those physical inquiries, called
metaphysical; but with a view to itself, and the transcendant
eminence of its object was more properly called [Greek: hae protae
philosophia], the first Philosophy." Three treatises (in a note), p.
365. Ibid.--See also Mr. Coleridge's Friend, vol. i. p. 309.
[3] Metaph. I. vi. c. I.
[4] Mr. Coleridge.

* * * * *

WILLIAM HAYLEY.

The most remarkable incidents in Hayley's Life are to be collected from
his Memoirs of himself, edited by his friend the Rev. Dr. Johnson,
better known as the favourite kinsman of Cowper. The Memoirs, though
somewhat more copious than many readers might have wished them, are yet
far from being devoid of entertainment to the lovers of literary
biography.

William Hayley was born at Chichester, on the 29th of October, 1745. His
father was a private gentleman, son of one Dean of Chichester, and
nephew to another. Having enriched himself by an union with the daughter
of an opulent merchant, who died without leaving him any children, he
married for his second wife, Mary, a daughter of Colonel Yates, a
representative in Parliament for the city of Chichester, the mother of
the poet.

His father dying when he was three years old, and his only brother soon
after, William became the sole care of a discreet and affectionate
woman. A similar lot will be found to