The Triumphs of Temper

London: Printed for T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, (Successors to Mr. Cadell) in the Strand., 1795. Eighth edition, corrected [as stated]. 12mo in leather boards, gilt blocking; 100 pp: illustrations (b&w); 13 cm Front board detached and first preliminary signature (or partial signature) appears to be poorly re-glued and thus askew. A binder's copy. Text block is tight, leaves and plates genlty toned and/or intermittently sparsely foxed. Rear board fully attached in original state. Hardcover.

Handsomely illustrated, with b&w plates throughout. Hayley (1745–1820) was an English poet, man of letters, and influential literary patron best remembered today less for his verse than for his role within late-eighteenth-century literary culture. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he achieved early success with moral and didactic poems such as An Essay on History (1780) and The Triumphs of Temper (1781), works once widely read but now largely eclipsed. Hayley’s enduring significance lies in his close association with William Blake, whom he supported financially and commissioned for illustrations during Blake’s years at Felpham, and in his Life of William Cowper (1803–04), a foundational Romantic-era literary biography. His career exemplifies the transition from Augustan verse to Romantic sensibility, as well as the waning authority of the polite poetic tradition he helped sustain.