SOURCE: Jarvis, Robin. “Poetry in Motion: George Dyer's Pedestrian Tour.” Wordsworth Circle 29, no. 3 (summer 1998): 142-51.

In the following excerpt, Jarvis discusses one of Dyer's poems about a walking tour with his friend Arthur Aikin, arguing that at least some of his poetry was at the forefront of Romantic and revolutionary sentiment.

It is the fate of George Dyer, at least among scholars working outside the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, permanently to be confused with the author of The Fleece and “Grongar Hill.” John Dyer (1699-1757), anthologised in popular volumes like The Norton Anthology of Poetry, is reputedly—to borrow the imagery once loved by publishers—a “silver poet” of the eighteenth century; by contrast, George Dyer's metallurgical status must be bronze at best. Even among specialists in the Romantic period, his work is little-known and seldom read. He is remembered chiefly as an intimate of Charles...