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European Romantic Review, 2002, Vol. 13, pp. 383–392

THE SONNETS OF WILLIAM HAYLEY

AND GIFT EXCHANGEReggie Allen

LITERARY HISTORY often accredits Charlotte Smith with reviving the sonnet in British

Romanticism. Her Elegiac Sonnets, first published in 1784, proved widely popular and

inspirational. In the Dedication and Preface to Elegiac Sonnets, however, she acknowledges

the influence of William Hayley, a popular poet and a wealthy gentleman of her native

Sussex. In the Dedication Smith calls Hayley ‘‘the greatest modern Master of that charm-

ing talent, in which I can never be more than a distant copyist’’ (2). In her Preface she

describes how the legitimate or Italian sonnet form is ‘‘ill calculated for our language.

The specimen Mr. Hayley has given, though they form a strong exception, prove no

more, than that the difficulties of the attempt vanish before uncommon powers’’ (3).

Smith’s praise of Hayley arose from more than an admiration of his poems. Although

she only knew Hayley by reputation, she entreated his assistance as a result of severe finan-

cial distress—she wrote her volume from King’s Bench debtor’s prison. He helped her to

get the volume published and allowed the Dedication to bear his name, which at the time

was considerably well known (Smith xxii). Whether Smith felt more grateful for Hayley’s

assistance or for his poetic example, both possibilities rely on the notion of indebtedness.

This kind of reciprocity characterizes Hayley’s relationship with many contemporary

artists, and it also lies at the heart of his use of the sonnet form.

Because he is best-known as the patron of William Blake, one can easily forget, as pos-

terity has, that Hayley was a writer himself. In addition to such works as The Triumphs of

Temper (1781), a mock epic in the style of Pope, and his Life of Cowper (1803), he produced

numerous dedicatory and occasional sonnets, which contributed as much to Hayley’s

reputation as a patron as they did to his reputation as a poet. Whenever the work of an

artist or the wealth of a potential patron caught Hayley’s attention, he sent that person

a laudatory poem, usually a sonnet. He used these verses as an opportunity to begin a cor-

respondence and often a professional or personal relationship developed. The recipient of

the verse would usually respond with praise for Hayley, which he could respond to with a

sonnet of gratitude. The correspondence could go back and forth indefinitely. Blake cap-

tures this feature of Hayley’s patronage in his well-known epigram, ‘‘On Hayley the

Pickthank’’: ‘‘I write the rascal thanks, till he and I=With thanks and compliments are

quite drawn dry’’ (Bishop 36-7). Blake’s frustration with the situation is one of the reasons

he eventually broke with his patron; Anna Seward, however, adored trading compliments

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with Hayley. A poem current at the time parodied their exchange of letters and poems in

praise of one another:

Miss S: Prince of Poets, England’s glory,

Mr. Hayley, that is you!

Mr. H: Ma’am, you carry all before you,

Trust me, Lichfield Swan, you do.

Miss S: In epic, elegy, or sonnet,

Mr. Hayley, you’re divine!

Mr. H: Madam, take my word upon it,

You yourself are—all the Nine! (Bishop 70)

Hayley’s constant correspondence occasioned him to write numerous sonnets, all of

which he endeavored to publish, either immediately in collections or eventually in his

memoirs. Even if the recipient of a sonnet refused to respond, Hayley could at least publish

the poem he had sent. Each sonnet he published thus reiterated his role as a poet. Those

that praised other artists reaffirmed his generosity as a patron and those that praised other

patrons reaffirmed his social connections. The works his artists produced about him per-

formed the same social functions as the works by him. By writing sonnets in praise of

Hayley, dedicating her volume to him, and styling herself as his ‘‘distant copyist,’’

Smith provides just one example of how his circle could reciprocate. Much of the

man’s literary career had its foundation in the simple exchange of favors and sonnets.

Hayley’s sonnets exemplify a theory of art as gift and commodity exchange that Lewis

Hyde explores in The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property (1983). Hyde argues

that works of art can ‘‘exist simultaneously in two ‘economies,’ a market economy and

a gift economy’’ (xi). A market economy, typified by barter or cash purchase, differs

from a gift economy, where one can give something without expecting anything in

return. A return is possible, but the main benefit of the giving is the establishment of com-

munity (xiv). In publishing his sonnets for money, Hayley participated in a market

exchange, but by using them to form a small artistic community, he participates in gift

exchange. According to Hyde, constant donation increases the power of a gift: ‘‘the

gift becomes an agent of social cohesion, and this again leads to the feeling that its passage

increases its worth’’ (35). Hayley maintained the cohesion of his group with a constant

donation of verse, hardly ever letting a work of art go without penning a sonnet of praise,

and never receiving praise without sending a sonnet of gratitude.

This exchange of sonnets, as Adela Pinch points out, is akin to modern day greeting

cards because both offer conventional expressions, quotations, or even cliches as personal

feelings (69). The comparison between sonnets and greeting cards takes on a special

significance in terms of gift exchange. Both are given to accompany presents or to

serve as presents themselves. They are usually given on the same occasions of birthdays,

anniversaries, or holidays. In both cases conventional expressions are used to convey sup-

posedly personal sentiments of affection, condolences, congratulations, or gratitude. In an

effort to distinguish their sonnets from the conventional, many writers would open with

an assertion of their sincerity. This opening soon became a convention itself. The largest

producer of American greeting cards may be making a similar claim at sincerity since

‘‘Hallmark’’ means any mark or symbol of genuineness.

The recipients of both sonnets and greeting cards feel a social obligation to return the

favor and by this reciprocity Hayley secured his artistic circle. His ‘‘Sonnet to the Earl of

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Hardwicke,’’ and the circumstances behind its composition perfectly exemplify the circu-

larity of Hayley’s exchanges. He began this particular cycle in 1778 by dedicating his

Epistle on Painting to one of the earliest members of his circle, the portrait painter

George Romney. Romney conveyed his gratitude to Hayley along with some compli-

ments that Lord Hardwicke had made on the poem. According to Hayley’s memoirs,

Hardwicke had, ‘‘suggested a few ideas, of which the author availed himself in the second

edition, sending a copy to his Lordship with a sonnet of gratitude, to which that accom-

plished nobleman returned the following polite billet . . . ’’ (1: 173). The memoirs then

include Hardwicke’s response. Hayley eventually published this sonnet in his collected

Poems and Plays (1785) and included Hardwicke’s compliments and letter in his Memoirs

(1823). The cycle ends where it began, with publications by Hayley.

Poems and Plays contains nine sonnets, all of which Hayley initially sent as personal gifts.

Most of them refer to a specific work of art and fit in at least one of three categories:

sonnets that accompany gifts, sonnets of gratitude, and sonnets of praise. A good represen-

tation of all three categories is the ‘‘Sonnet to the Earl of Hardwicke, With the Second

Edition of the Epistles to Romney, 1779’’:

Hardwicke! whose bright applause a poet crown’d

Unknown to thee and the Muse’s quire,

Permit his hand with joyous pride to sound

A note of gratitude on freedom’s lyre!

And fear not flattery’s song from one plac’d higher

Than she has power to raise her menial crew;

From one who, proud of independent fire,

Scorns the base Noble, but reveres the true.

The liberal spirit feels thy generous praise

Fall from pure honour’s sphere, like genial dew;

Blest if its vital influence shall raise

A future flower more worthy of thy view!

Blest if in these re-polish’d lays thou find

Some light reflected from thy letter’d mind! (Poems 159)

The first quatrain thanks Hardwicke for his praise of the first edition of the Epistles on

Painting. The second quatrain represents the convention of disclaiming convention; the

poet asserts the sincerity of his sonnet. Hayley claims that his independence does not

require him to flatter every noble he meets. Nevertheless his ‘‘independent fire’’ seems

in direct contrast to the ‘‘light reflected’’ in the last line. Since Hardwicke made sugges-

tions to improve the Epistles, Hayley claims that any light from the ‘‘re-polish’d lays’’ is

really the Earl’s own.

The borrowed light convention appears in many of Hayley’s sonnets. In his ‘‘Sonnet

to Mr. William Long, On his Recovery from a dangerous Illness,’’ Hayley compares

the illness and recovery of his friend to the sun’s setting and rising:

Blest be the day which bids my grief subside,

Rais’d by the sickness of my distant friend!

Blest the dear lines, so long to hope deny’d,

By langour’s aching fingers kindly penn’d!

How keen the fear to feel his letters end,

Whose wit was my delight, whose truth my guide!

But how did joy that painful fear transcend,

When I again his well known hand decried!

Such was the dread of new-created man,

When first he miss’d the setting orb of day;

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Such the delight that thro’ his bosom ran,

When he perceiv’d the reascending ray.

Ah no! his thoughts endur’d less anxious strife;

Thou, Friendship! art the sun of mental life. (Poems 167)

Hayley specifies that friendship is the sun of ‘‘mental’’ life; much of his creative ability

revolved around his friendships or artistic circle. The sonnet also highlights the importance

of artistic exchange to Hayley. Long would often critique Hayley’s poems before publica-

tion. Hayley represents the ending of Long’s life primarily as an ending of their corres-

pondence. The ‘‘dear lines’’ that Long sends Hayley are paralleled with and as equally

blessed as the day of his recovery. Synecdoche reduces Long to ‘‘aching fingers’’ penning

a letter. Metonymy reduces his life to the correspondence that Hayley fears will end.

Hayley employs the borrowed light convention again in his ‘‘Sonnet to Dr. Harrington,

On his adding Music to a Song of the Author’s’’:

Harmonious friend! to whom my honor’d Muse

Is eager to declare how much she owes,

Accept, and with indulgent eye peruse

Her hasty verse, impatient to disclose

How from your aid her new attraction flows.

Cold as the figure of unfinish’d clay,

Which by Prometheus’ plastic hand arose,

My lifeless song in half existence lay:

I could not add the spark of heav’nly flame:

To harmony’s high sphere I dar’d not stray

To steal from thence—but in this languid frame

You pour, without a theft, the vital ray:

Your generous art the quick’ning spirit gives,

And by your tuneful fire the Ballad lives. (Poems 163)

The borrowed light metaphor is part of a larger convention of artistic modesty; Hayley’s

sonnets often express polite self abasement. Perhaps it was this desire for a humble tone

that led Hayley to sometimes write in the persona of an aspiring female poet.

Hayley published two sonnets that he had written under his wife’s name. In 1781

Elizabeth Hayley published an English translation of Madame de Lambert’s Essays on

Friendship and Old Age. When she sent copies of her book to friends, her husband

would often include a sonnet under her name. Poems and Plays includes two such sonnets,

one to Edmund Antrobus, who had loaned his mansion and servants to the Hayleys for a

month, and one to Edward Gibbon, who had risen to popularity in 1776 when he pub-

lished the first volume of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In 1780 Hayley began a

friendship with Gibbon by dedicating his Essay on History to him. In 1781 when Gibbon

published the second and third volumes of Decline, he sent copies to the Hayleys. Hayley

responded with a copy of his wife’s book.

The sonnets under Elizabeth Hayley’s name both employ the convention of an apolo-

getic female poet. Through this persona Hayley writes to Antrobus:

Kind Host! who bordering on the vale of years,

Keep’st in thy generous heart a youthful glow,

Whose liberal elegance of soul endears

The joy thy bounty glories to bestow;

Accept a volume, in whose pages flow

The mild effusions of a female mind!

First of the letter’d fair that France can shew,

Of sprightly wit with moral truth combin’d!

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In the faint copy may thy candour see

Some slight resemblance of her style refin’d:

Whate’er the merits of the book, in thee

May all the blessings of its theme be join’d!

Thine be that joy which friendship’s bosom fills;

And thine the peace of age, without its ills! (Poems 162)

The persona addresses Gibbon:

How may I, Gibbon, to thy taste confide

This artless copy of a Gallic gem?

Wilt thou not cast th’ unpolish’d work aside,

And with just scorn my failing line condemn?

No! thou wilt never, with pedantic phlegm,

Spurn the first produce of a female mind;

Young flowers! that, trembling on a tender stem,

Court thy protection from each ruder wind.

Tho’ I may injure, by a coarser style,

The work that Lambert’s graceful hand design’d,

I still, if favour’d by thy partial smile,

Shall boast like her of friendship’s joys refin’d.

Nor fear from age her list of female woes

If, as my years increase, thy friendship grows. (Poems 161)

Both poems link the term ‘‘female mind’’ to insignificant or naive products like ‘‘mild

effusions’’ of ‘‘first produce.’’ Both poems refer to Elizabeth Hayley’s work as a ‘‘faint’’

or ‘‘artless copy.’’ This may refer to the book’s status as translation, but it may also refer

to another apologetic convention of female poets. Smith, for example, did call herself a

‘‘distant copyist’’ in her volume’s dedication to Hayley. The Gibbon sonnet conveys

the female poet’s uncertainty by presenting the first quatrain in the form of a question.

Both poems express an anxiety that the recipient will not ‘‘accept’’ or at worse ‘‘spurn’’

the work.

Hayley already had employed the persona of the female poet in his Essay on Epic Poetry

(1782). The Essay was well-respected, mostly because of its extensive notes, where Hayley

wrote translations or imitations of Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish authors. While attend-

ing Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Hayley had employed a tutor to teach him these languages

and he was one of few British men of letters familiar with such literature (Bishop 36-7).

The notes contain seven translated sonnets: one by Dante, three by Camoens, one by a

Spanish lady in honor of the poet Ercilla, one by an Italian lady in honor of Petrarch,

and Petrarch’s reply. Interestingly, of all the works Hayley could have included, he

chose to feature poems by two unknown women. Of all of Petrarch’s sonnets, the one

Hayley chose to translate was his response to an admirer. This demonstrates the incredi-

ble attraction such literary exchanges held for Hayley. He must have recognized

the women as putting the sonnet to the same use he did—to praise another artist and

to initiate a correspondence.

In translating the sonnets of the Italian and Spanish ladies, Hayley once again gets to

don the persona of the uncertain female poet. To the line in his Essay, ‘‘Proceed, ye

Sisters of the tuneful Shell,’’ he affixes a note beginning, ‘‘For the advice which I have

thus ventured to give such of my fair readers as have a talent for poetry, I shall produce

them a much higher poetical authority’’ (287). He then goes on to explain how an

Italian lady, Giustina Perrot, had written a sonnet to Petrarch asking if he thought poetry

a proper employment for a woman. Petrarch sent back a sonnet of encouragement.

THE SONNETS OF WILLIAM HAYLEY AND GIFT EXCHANGE 387

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Hayley then reproduces both sonnets along with his imitation of each. Giustina’s imitation

concentrates on her discouragers:

Gladly would I exchange inglorious ease

For future fame, the Poet’s fond desire!

And still to live, in spite of death, aspire

By Virtue’s light, that darkness cannot seize:

But, stupified by Custom’s blank decrees,

The idle vulgar, void of liberal fire,

Bid me, with scorn, from Helicon retire,

And rudely blame my generous hope to please.

Distaffs, not laurels, to thy sex belong,

They cry—as honour were beyond our view:

To such low cares they wish my spirit bent.

Say thou! who marchest, ‘mid the favor’d few,

To high Parnassus, with triumphant song,

Should I abandon such a fair intent? (Essay 289)

The sonnet uses the unobtainable laurel wreath to represent women’s attempts at poetry.

It ends with the same convention of anxious questioning that Hayley used in the Gibbon

sonnet.

The sonnet from the Spanish poet Lady Lenora de Iciz praises Don Alonzo de Ercilla y

Zuniga, epic poet and war hero:

Marble, that forms the Hero’s mimic frame,

And laurels, that reward the Poet’s strain,

Accept, Ercilla, from thy grateful Spain!

Thy sword and pen alike this tribute claim.

Our Warriors honor thy heroic name;

Thy birth is envy’d by Ambition’s train;

Thy verses teach the Bard of happiest vein

A finer polish, and a nobler aim.

May glory round the world thy merit spread!

In Memory’s volume may thy praises stand

In characters that time shall never destroy!

Thy songs, and thy exploits, without the dread

To be surpass’d by a superior hand,

With equal right their equal fame enjoy! (Essay 213)

This sonnet concentrates on immortalizing Ercilla through the lady’s praise. In translating

this Hayley, perhaps knowingly, provides a model for contemporary female poets to praise

him. While his sonnets in female persona encourage women to write poetry, he also

encourages them to choose as their subject the virtues of a male poet.

In the Dedication and Preface to Elegiac Sonnets, Smith seems to follow Hayley’s model

of the female poet. When she calls the legitimate or Italian sonnet ‘‘ill-calculated’’ for the

English language, with the exception of ‘‘the specimen Mr. Hayley has given,’’ she must be

referring to his translations in the Essay on Epic Poetry (Smith 3). Hayley’s work had

appeared two years before Smith composed hers and was still respected for its handling

of the Italian form. Smith may also have seen Hayley’s sonnets in his wife’s name before

their 1785 publication. Even if unfamiliar with those poems, she was familiar with the con-

ventions of the apologetic female poet. Her dedication thanks Hayley for the liberty she had

obtained in ‘‘dedicating these simple effusions to the greatest modern Master of that charming

talent, in which I can never be more than a distant copyist’’ (emphasis mine). Smith hopes

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that Hayley’s ‘‘candour and sensibility’’ will excuse ‘‘the errors [his] judgment must

discover’’ (2).

When Hayley sent poetry to Smith, she could respond in verse. Her volume contains

the sonnet ‘‘To Hayley, on receiving some elegant lines from him.’’ Much like the sonnet

of the Spanish lady, the poem concentrates on the immortality of a male poet:

For me the Muse a simple band design’d

Of ‘‘idle’’ flowers that bloom the woods among,

Which, with the cypress and the willow join’d,

A garland form’d as artless as my song.

And little dared I hope its transient hours

So long would last; composed of buds so brief;

’Till Hayley’s hand among the vagrant flowers

Threw from his verdant crown a deathless leaf.

For high in Fame’s bright fane has Judgment placed

The laurel wreath Serena’s poet won,

Which, woven with myrtles by the hands of Taste,

The Muse decreed for this her favorite son.

And those immortal leaves his temples shade,

Whose fair, eternal verdure—shall not fade! (Smith 25)

Much like the sonnet of the Italian lady, Smith’s sonnet uses the convention of the

unobtainable laurel wreath. Her first quatrain describes her own poetic wreath, which

is a ‘‘simple band’’ and an ‘‘artless garland.’’ It consists not of laurel, but ‘‘idle flowers’’

interwoven with cypress and willow, both emblematic of sorrow.

Smith’s next quatrain contrasts the transience of her wreath, ‘‘composed of buds so

brief,’’ with the permanence of Hayley’s crown of ‘‘deathless’’ leaves. Interestingly,

Anna Seward made the exact same observation of her own poems, saying, ‘‘faint one

day will be their bloom and odour, compared with the magnolias, roses, and amaranths

of the Haylean wreath’’ (Bishop 72). Hayley’s sonnet to Gibbon had described his female

persona’s writings as ‘‘Young flowers! that trembling on a tender stem,=Court thy protec-

tion from each ruder wind.’’ Smith also uses this convention of the male poet protecting

the fragile flowers of the female poet. She describes her wreath as doomed ‘‘ ‘Till Hayley’s

hand among the vagrant flowers=Threw from his verdant crown a deathless leaf.’’ The

exact nature of Hayley’s intervention is unclear. The ‘‘deathless leaf’’ may allude to the

elegant lines her sonnet is responding to, or perhaps the influence of Hayley’s work on

her as a whole. She may also be referring to his recent assistance with the publication

of this volume. Either way, she is indebted to him and repays him with the very conven-

tions of female praise that his poetry had included.

Smith’s third quatrain discusses the fame of Hayley’s wreath. She calls him ‘‘Serena’s

poet’’ referring to the heroine of his best known work The Triumphs of Temper.

Although the poem was not a sonnet, it contributed to Hayley’s position at the center

of a massive gift exchange. The poem was a mock epic in the style of Rape of the Lock,

which instructed women on how to govern their tempers. Consequently, the poem

became a popular gift for young girls and ran into fourteen editions. Many of the

book’s purchasers and recipients treated it as a present directly from Hayley and he

received much gratitude. Mothers wrote, thanking him for the reformation of their

daughters; daughters wrote, thanking him for such an entertaining and instructive

poem; and wives wrote, thanking him for the lesson by which they had won their hus-

bands. The most famous example of the latter category was Emma Hart, who wrote of

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Triumphs of Temper, ‘‘It was that that made me Lady Hamilton’’ (Bishop 99–100, 129–130).

Smith ends her sonnet asserting that Hayley’s fame will live forever. The ‘‘immortal

leaves’’ of his laurels ‘‘shall not fade!’’

The immortalizing power of art became the subject of many of Hayley’s later sonnets.

One such is a ‘‘Sonnet to Dr. Beattie, In grateful acknowledgement of his very interesting

present, the Compositions, Life, and Character of his Son’’ (1796). Dr. Beattie, the author

of ‘‘The Minstrel,’’ turned his talents to biography after the death of his son. Hayley’s

sonnet commends the task:

Bard of the North! I thank thee with my tears,

For this fond work of thy paternal hand.

It bids the buried youth before me stand

In nature’s softest light, which love endears.

Parents like thee, whose grief the world reveres,

Faithful to pure affection’s proud command,

For a lost child have lasting honours planned,

To give in fame what fate denied in years;

The filial form of Icarus was wrought

By his afflicted sire, the sire of art,

And Tullia’s fane engross’d her father’s heart;

That fane rose only in perturbed thought,

But sweet perfection crowns, as truth begun,

This Christian image of thy happier son. (Memoirs 2: 192–3)

The first quatrain represents art as able to raise the dead. The composition ‘‘bids the

buried youth’’ to stand. The second quatrain presents the son’s ‘‘lasting honours’’ and

‘‘fame’’ as compensation for his lost life. The third quatrain identifies Daedalus as

both the sire of Icarus and ‘‘the sire of art.’’ Art and children seem connected as products

that hopefully will survive their creator. If the child dies, he or she can still survive the

parent through art. The sonnet to Beattie anticipates Hayley’s reaction to his own son’s

death in 1800.

After the death of Thomas, Hayley devoted much of his energy to preserving his mem-

ory in memoirs and poetry. Hayley’s circle assisted with poems, portraits, and sculptures of

the boy. Flaxman erected a marble monument to Thomas portraying him as an angel.

Hayley responded with the following sonnet:

The dead have spoken:—and to Nature’s ear

The gentle tenant of an early tomb

Yet speaks; and seems in speaking to assume

The voice of gratitude—a voice most dear

To all, who virtue and her law revere!

Yes! he commands the sculptured angel’s plume,

That shines expressive of his heavenly doom;

He greets the Sculptor’s love with thanks sincere.

Hark! how he clears the tablet’s mournful date:

‘‘It was my youthful wish,’’ he fondly cries,

‘‘Before my elder friends to heaven might rise,

To prove their kind support in life’s last state,

Their age’s prop!—but mark my happier fate!

A call from God to guide them to the skies.’’ (Memoirs 2: 43)

The sonnet expresses Hayley’s gratitude as if it were coming from Thomas. Once again

art represents an ability to raise the dead. The poem calls to mind the sonnet to Long,

where Hayley expresses his anxiety over his friend’s possible death as an anxiety over

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the end of their artistic exchange. In Thomas’s sonnet, Hayley represents his son as

thanking Flaxman for his sculpture with verse and fulfilling even in death the obligations

of gift exchange.

In reality, of course, the dead do not return favors, and this proved a serious dilemma for

Hayley. He survived most of his circle and spent much of his later years memorializing

deceased friends. He often worried who would do him the favor and ended up writing

his own memoirs. They were published in 1823 three years after the author’s death.

Through gift exchange, Hayley had often alternated between the roles of composer

and recipient of published praise. His memoirs allowed him to simultaneously play both

roles because he wrote them entirely in the third person. Robert Southey criticizes this

bizarre choice in his review of the publication:

The Memoirs are written in the third person, a less natural, and therefore a less pleasing form, than if

the first personal pronoun had been allowed its proper place. They have the less excusable fault that

they are written as if the author had affected throughout not to appear his own biographer: matters of

fact are stated hesitatingly, and as if by inference of other things; and by this useless artifice of style,

one charm of auto-biography is destroyed. (264)

By pretending not to be his own biographer, Hayley essentially ‘‘plays dead’’ to facilitate

his own memorialization. In Thomas’s sonnet he raises the dead and in his own memoirs

buries the living, all to perpetuate an illusion of exchange.

In artistic exchange, the creator of a work can usually expect to be the theme of a sub-

sequent work. Hayley’s third person memoirs merely encapsulate this subject=object rela-

tionship. Another member of his circle, George Romney, uses the same technique in his

portrait ‘‘John Flaxman Modelling the Bust of William Hayley’’ (1795). Hayley poses in

the center, looking directly at the viewer. He is watched by Flaxman, who is in the process

of sculpting his image. This portrait beautifully exemplifies the circularity of artistic gift

exchange: A painter portrays a sculptor portraying a poet. To complete the circle

Hayley should not be represented as posing, but perhaps as composing a sonnet to the

painter. Romney, however, chooses to complete his own circle, including an image of

himself painting in the portrait. Much like Hayley’s memoirs, Romney’s portrait makes

the artist creator and object of his own work, revealing an anxiety about incomplete

exchanges.

Hayley closes his memoirs with the hope that ‘‘a future memorialist, who may be furn-

ished with ampler materials’’ will elaborate on it (2: 75). None could have ampler materials

on the poet’s life than its immediate memorialist, Hayley himself. Still Hayley fantasizes

that he will have another biographer because he wrote the memoirs of so many and

the laws of gift exchange require it: ‘‘the person who devoted so much of his time and

labour to render all the justice in his power to the talents and virtues of several among

the most deserving of his contemporaries, will, in due time, find another honest chroni-

cler’’ (Memoirs 2: 76). He and Smith seemed to share a preoccupation with how they

would be remembered. They often joked that the survivor must write the other’s epitaph

(Fletcher 289). Ironically the two poets’ situations have ended up just the opposite of

Smith’s prediction in her sonnet to Hayley. His ‘‘immortal leaves’’ have faded while her

‘‘buds so brief’’ have survived. Rather than plunging into complete obscurity, however,

Hayley’s memory has been preserved by the ethics of gift exchange and the art of those

he patronized.

THE SONNETS OF WILLIAM HAYLEY AND GIFT EXCHANGE 391

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Works Cited

Bishop, Morchard. Blake’s Hayley: The Life, Works, and Friendships of William Hayley. London: Victor Gollancz, 1951.

Fletcher, Lorraine. Charlotte Smith: A Critical Biography. New York: St. Martin’s, 1998.

Hayley, William. An Essay on Epic Poetry. 1782. Introd. M. Celeste Williamson. Gainesville: Scholars’ Facsimiles &

Reprints, 1968.

—. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Hayley, Esq. The Friend and Biographer of Cowper. Ed. John Johnson. 2 vols.

London, 1823.

—. Poems and Plays. Vol. 1. London, 1785, 6 vols.

Hyde, Lewis. The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. New York: Vintage, 1983.

Pinch, Adela. Strange Fits of Passion: Epistemologies of Emotion, Hume to Austen. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996.

Sharp, Ronald A. ‘‘Keats and the Spiritual Economies of Gift Exchange.’’ Keats–Shelley Journal 38 (1989): 66–81.

Smith, Charlotte. The Poems of Charlotte Smith. Ed. Stuart Curran. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.

Southey, Robert. ‘‘Hayley’s Life and Writings.’’ Quarterly Review 31 (1824): 263–311.

392 R. ALLEN

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