![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Hayley-mezzotint-after-Romney.jpg\")
Painting, pensions & the poet laureateship<\/h3>\n
Hayley was the first person to publish an extensive translation<\/a> of Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy<\/em> in English, a great friend of the artist George Romney, who for many years spent several weeks each summer with Hayley, relaxing and painting, and successfully lobbied the government to award the poet William Cowper a pension. Hayley also tried \u2013\u00a0with somewhat less success \u2013 to cure Cowper of \u201chis calamitous depression\u201d. And he negotiated book contracts for the poet and novelist Charlotte Smith. In 1790, Hayley was offered the poet laureateship, which he turned down, citing a combination of poor health and political objections to the duties attached to the post.<\/p>\n But today, where he\u2019s known at all, it\u2019s as the interfering patron of William Blake. The pair \u2013\u00a0one a successful author, the other a struggling engraver \u2013 met through their mutual friend, the sculptor John Flaxman. Late in the summer of 1800, Blake and his wife Catherine moved down to Felpham in West Sussex to collaborate with Hayley on engravings for his biography of Cowper. At first, Blake was delighted both with Felpham, and with Hayley. But, over time, the relationship deteriorated. Hayley was accustomed to advising his friends \u2013\u00a0including Cowper, Romney and the sculptor John Flaxman, through whom he met Blake \u2013\u00a0on subjects for their poetry and art. As this snarky verse in his notebook makes clear, Blake appreciated Hayley\u2019s interventions rather less:<\/p>\n On Hayley\u2019s Friendship<\/em><\/p>\n When Hayley finds out what you cannot do, Their relationship was, however, complex. And although Blake undoubtedly found his employer frustratingly overbearing and earthbound, he also learned a great deal from him. As well as paying Blake for his work, Hayley taught him Greek and expanded his knowledge of Milton. Blake was also hugely grateful for Hayley\u2019s interventions when he was accused of sedition. Hayley helped post bail, organised and funded a lawyer, and spoke for Blake in court. It was, in fact, a large part, down to Hayley\u2019s involvement that Blake was acquitted, escaping prison and a hefty fine.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not only for his Blake connection that Hayley matters. As the manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum\u2019s collection reveal, he was a significant mover and shaker in late eighteenth-century cultural life, someone whose published writings and correspondence reveal much about literary and artistic production and relationships in the late eighteenth century.<\/p>\n Look out for further posts on the Hayley Papers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" William Hayley (1745-1820) is a neglected figure whose influence on literary and cultural history is now being recognised. But who was he? Dr Lisa Gee has been researching and cataloguing the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Hayley Papers. The Fitzwilliam Museum holds the world\u2019s largest collection of manuscript material relating to William Hayley (1745-1820). But who was he? A largely unknown figure today,… Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":9762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,156],"tags":[219,218],"coauthors":[317],"class_list":["post-9761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-practice","category-the-fitzwilliam-museum","tag-collections-engagement","tag-cultural-value"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9761"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9770,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9761\/revisions\/9770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9761"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Saving William Blake<\/h3>\n
\nThat is the very thing he\u2019ll set you to;
\nIf you break not your neck, \u2018tis not his fault;
\nBut pecks of poison are not pecks of salt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Young-Blake-by-Catherine-Blake.jpg\")