DYER, JOHN (c. 170o-1758), British poet, the son of a solicitor, was born in 1699 or 1700 at Aberglasney, in Carmar thenshire, and died at Coningsby on Dec. 15, 17 58. In 1726 his first poem, Grongar Hill, appeared in a miscellany published by Richard Savage, the poet. It was an irregular ode in the so-called Pindaric style, but Dyer entirely rewrote it and printed it sep arately in 17 2 7. Grongar Hill, as it now stands, is a short poem of only ' 50 lines, describing in language of much freshness and picturesque charm the view from a hill overlooking the poet's native vale of Towy. A visit to Italy bore fruit in The Ruins of Rome (1740), a descriptive piece in about 600 lines of Miltonic blank verse. He was ordained priest in 1741, and held successively various Lincolnshire parishes. In 1757 he published his longest work, the didactic blank verse epic of The Fleece, in four books, discoursing of the tending of sheep, of the shearing and prepara tion of the wool, of weaving, and of trade in woollen manufactures. His poems were collected by Dodsley in 1 77o and by Mr. Edward Thomas in 1903, for the Welsh Library, vol. iv.