“Derby, 12th October, 1788.
To Miss Seward,[43] Lichfield.
Madam,
“I have repeatedly read your charming poem. The subject you hold out for my pencil, as you have treated it, is an excellent one; but how to paint a flaming sword baffles my art. However, as soon as I find myself stout enough, I intend to attack it. I admire the scenery. Would it strengthen or weaken the character to lay it near the sea, upon a rising ground, and through an opening among the trees low in the picture to see the moon just rising above a troubled sea? The point of time is when the sword is rising out of the tomb, what kind of tomb should it be? To make it a regular one would indicate Herver’s father had the usual funeral rites performed, which the poem, I think, contradicts. Your reflections upon this point will greatly oblige,
“Madam,
“Your most obedient hble servt,
“JOSH WRIGHT.
“P.S.—Dr. Darwin, I hope, explained his mistake in returning the poem before I had done with it.”
“May 5th, 1789.
Mr. Hayley to Mrs. Hayley.
“I shall beg you & Mrs. Beridge to call upon friend Wright & tell him, from me, that I & all the lovers of painting with whom I have conversed, since my return to town, consider his pictures this year as the flower of the Royal Exhibition. His ‘Dying Soldier’ made me literally shed tears, his ‘Moonlight’ enchanted.”
“Towards the end of August, 1776, Hayley and Mrs. Hayley went to Derby for the pleasure of congratulating their friend Dr. Beridge on a most seasonable marriage, that restored him from a state of perilous discomfort to health and happiness. This visit was productive of various delights. Hayley not only sympathised in the happiness of the restored Physician, but in the weeks that he passed under his friend’s roof he had the gratification of cultivating an intimacy with Wright, the admirable painter of Derby, who, having injured his health by too assiduous application to his art, had great comfort in the kind attention he received from the friendly physician, & took a pleasure in executing for Hayley two hasty portraits in chiaro-oscuro of Mrs. Beridge & her husband, after painting for the Doctor the Poet of Sussex and his ‘Eliza.’”[44]
The following is extracted from the “Life of Wm. Hayley, Esq.” by John Johnson, LL.D., Rector of Welborne, in Norfolk:—“Hayley went to Cambridge in 1763. Here he formed an intimate friendship with Thornton, Beridge, & Clyfford, whose custom it was to breakfast together in the apartments of each other. Hayley devoted some months of the year 1772 to his highly-valued friend Beridge, who had settled as a physician at Derby. Hayley then copied in water-colours two bold sketches of scenery near Matlock, lent to him by the very amiable artist Wright, of Derby, with whom he began this year an intimacy that lasted to the death of the painter, who frequently in his letters consulted his friend of Sussex on the subjects of his pencil.”
The following extract is from the Quarterly Review, “Memoirs, &c., of Wm. Hayley”:—
“Hayley’s son (Thomas Alphonso, the sculptor), was then in his thirteenth year.... It had been Hayley’s first intention to educate his son for the profession of physic, but many circumstances combined to give him a strong inclination for that of the arts. During a visit to Mrs. Hayley, Wright, of Derby, perceived in him so much aptitude for painting, that he took pains in instructing him; and upon the report of his progress, Flaxman wrote to his father, saying, ‘If you have not quite determined to make him a physician, and if you think he has talents for the Fine Arts, show yourself my friend indeed, and accept my offer as frankly as I make it.’”
The offer was accepted, but this promising young artist died, after a long illness, a few years later.
Extract from a letter from T. A. Hayley to his father, the poet:—