Life

He was educated at Christ's Hospital

Christ's Hospital

Christ's Hospital is an English coeducational independent day and boarding school with Royal Charter located in the Sussex countryside just south of Horsham in Horsham District, West Sussex, England...

, and attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...

. He edited the Delphin Classics

Delphin Classics

The Delphin Classics was an edition of the Latin classics, intended to be comprehensive, which was originally created in the 17th century.The 25 volumes were created in the 1670s for the Louis, le Grand Dauphin, heir of Louis XIV , and were written in Latin...

, a 143-volume set of Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 works published by Abraham John Valpy

Abraham John Valpy

Abraham John Valpy was an English printer and publisher.He was the son of the Reading schoolmaster Richard Valpy. He is remembered in connection with two great undertakings in the department of classical literature. These were reissues of Stephanus' Greek Thesaurus, for which E. H...

 at which task his editorial labors were so excessive as to induce near total blindness. He also wrote poetry, and authored a number of tracts on the plight of England's poor and on reform of the political system.

Radical

He shared many ideas with radical writers of the time. His doctrine of benevolence advised a moral obligation to the poor, during a time when the interest in the lower classes was subsiding. He had an impact on authors such as William Godwin

William Godwin

William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...

, but also gave critical and moral support to Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

 and William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....

.

Nicholas Roe's chapter on Dyer in The politics of nature: Wordsworth and some contemporaries shows Dyer to have been an important model for Wordsworth and Coleridge in the way he brought politics to bear on the poetry of nature and imagination. Dyer's influence represents, for Roe the answer to current historians who believe that the Romantics turned their backs on history in their search for a transcendent nature. The poet thus seems to have revenged himself on claims of insignificance.

Anecdotes

There are a number of stories associated with George Dyer particularly regarding his myopia and his notable eccentricities. These stories were famously told by two of his well known friends Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb was an English essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb . Lamb has been referred to by E.V...

. Lamb in his Elia

Elia

Elia may refer to:* European League of Institutes of the Arts , an organization of art schools* Elia , a prominent public artwork in Denmark* Elia, a historical and alternative name for the Jane and Finch neighbourhood of Toronto, Canada...

 essay Amicus Redivivus relates an incident in which Dyer, after a visit to the Lamb household in Islington

Islington

Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...

, walked the wrong way on the pathway and went right into the New River, nearly drowning himself in the process. Leigh Hunt tells a similarly story regarding Dyer, in which after spending the evening at the Hunt's for dinner, he inadvertently left with only one shoe. Apparently Dyer's missing shoe went unnoticed by him until he arrived home and he returned to the Hunt household after midnight, awakening everyone, to retrieve his missing shoe which was finally located under a table.

Another incident relating to Dyer concerns a preface which he wrote for his Poems published in 1802, and is described in detail by E. V. Lucas

E. V. Lucas

Edward Verrall Lucas was a versatile and popular English writer. His nearly 100 books demonstrate great facility with style, and are generally acknowledged as humorous by contemporary readers and critics. Some of his essays about the sport cricket are still considered among the best instructional...

 in his Life of Charles Lamb. It seems that on rereading one of the first prints of his book, Dyer claimed that there was a significant error in reasoning contained on the first page of the preface. Dyer rushed to the printer and at no small expense to himself had a number of prints redone. These stories can be found particularly in Hunt's Autobiography, the Essays of Elia

Essays of Elia

Essays of Elia is a collection of essays written by Charles Lamb; it was first published in book form in 1823, with a second volume, Last Essays of Elia, issued in 1833 by the publisher Edward Moxon....

, the Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, and The Life of Charles Lamb by E.V. Lucas.

Works

Compositions by George Dyer include:

• Poems (London, 1792)
• Complaints of the Poor People of England (London 1793)
• Poems and Critical Essays (London, 1802)
• History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge (two volumes, London, 1814)
• Privileges of the University of Cambridge (London, 1824)