WILLIAM, the friend and biographer of Cowper, was born at Chichester in 1745. After graduating at Cambridge he embraced the profession of the law; but finding it little congenial to his tastes he abandoned it, and retired to his patrimonial estate of Eartham in Sussex. His intention was to spend the remainder of his days in rural quiet, with such a seasoning only of literary activity as might defy ennui, and give a zest to his life. In his retirement he made the acquaintance of Cowper, and this acquaintance soon ripened into a friendship that remained close and unbroken till the great poet's death. Hayley himself survived till November 20, 1820. During his lifetime Hayley was held in high estimation, partly for his literary qualities, which were not wholly contemptible, but more for his position in society, his taste and acquirements, which were both considerable, and his fortune which was large. In his prime, too, there was no one to dispute the poetic laurel with him: the great of the eighteenth century had died out, and those of the nineteenth had not yet been acknowledged; and thus the French proverb became true in his case, which says—"Au royaume des aveugles les borgnes sont rois." His best piece is his Triumph of Temper, which still enjoys a share of popularity; but he also wrote with ease and elegance the Vers de Société, so much in vogue in his day. His prose essays on Painting, History, Epic Poetry, and Sculpture, are quite above mediocrity, and he did a real service to literature by his Life of Cowper. His life of himself, from which the foregoing details are chiefly taken, is a sufficiently readable work.