If
his poem was written soon after his return, he did not make use of his
acquisitions in painting, whatever they might be; for decline of health
and love of study determined him to the Church. He therefore entered
into orders; and, it seems, married about the same time a lady of
the name of Ensor; "whose grandmother," says he, "was a Shakspeare,
descended from a brother of everybody's Shakspeare;" by her, in 1756, he
had a son and three daughters living.

His ecclesiastical provision was for a long time but slender. His first
patron, Mr. Harper, gave him, in 1741, Calthorp in Leicestershire, of
eighty pounds a year, on which he lived ten years, and then exchanged it
for Belchford, in Lincolnshire, of seventy-five. His condition now began
to mend. In 1751 Sir John Heathcote gave him Coningsby, of one hundred
and forty pounds a year; and in 1755 the Chancellor added Kirkby, of one
hundred and ten. He complains that the repair of the house at Coningsby,
and other expenses, took away the profit. In 1757 he published "The
Fleece," his greatest poetical work; of which I will not suppress a
ludicrous story. Dodsley the bookseller was one day mentioning it to a
critical visitor, with more expectation of success than the other could
easily admit. In the conversation the author's age was asked; and being
represented as advanced in life, "He will," said the critic, "be buried
in woollen." He did not indeed long survive that publication, nor long
enjoy the increase of his preferments, for in 1758 he died.

Dyer is not a poet of bulk or dignity sufficient to require an elaborate
criticism. "Grongar Hill" is the happiest of his productions: it is not
indeed very accurately written; but the scenes which it displays are so
pleasing, the images which they raise are so welcome to the mind, and
the reflections of the writer so consonant to the general sense or
experience of mankind, that when it is once read, it will be read again.
The idea of the "Ruins of Rome" strikes more, but pleases less, and the
title raises greater expectation than the performance gratifies. Some
passages, however, are conceived with the mind of a poet; as when, in
the neighbourhood of dilapidating edifices, he says,

"The Pilgrim oft
At dead of night, 'mid his orison hears
Aghast the voice of Time, disparting tow'rs
Tumbling all precipitate down dashed,
Rattling around, loud thund'ring to the Moon."

Of "Th