I too can hunt a Poetaster down

Bequest of Frank Brewer Bemis, 1941 – MS Eng 734

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Behold! – Ye tarts! one moment spare the text! –
HAYLEY’S last work and worst – until his next.

William Hayley (1745-1820). The Triumphs of Temper: a Poem in Six Cantos: autograph manuscript [1781].

As a poet Hayley never matched the success of his bestselling The Triumphs of Temper, an allegorical poem written to comfort young women in distress. He is chiefly remembered today as the friend and biographer of the poet William Cowper. This autograph manuscript has been extra-illustrated with six designs by Maria Flaxman engraved by William Blake, to whom Hayley acted as patron, for the thirteenth edition of the poem (1807).