Haynes Bayly (nee Hayes) with
widow's pride. Her lovely name was Helena; and I deeply regret to
add that, after an education at Oxford, Mr. Bayly, in his poems,
accentuated the penultimate, which, of course, is short.
"Oh, think not, Helena, of leaving us yet,"
he carolled, when it would have been just as easy, and a hundred
times more correct, to sing -
"Oh, Helena, think not of leaving us yet."
Miss Hayes had lands in Ireland, alas! and Mr. Bayly insinuated
that, like King Easter and King Wester in the ballad, her lovers
courted her for her lands and her fee; but he, like King Honour,
"For her bonny face
And for her fair bodie."
In 1825 (after being elected to the Athenaeum) Mr. Bayly "at last
found favour in the eyes of Miss Hayes." He presented her with a
little ruby heart, which she accepted, and they were married, and at
first were well-to-do, Miss Hayes being the heiress of Benjamin
Hayes, Esq., of Marble Hill, in county Cork. A friend of Mr.
Bayly's described him thus:
"I never have met on this chilling earth
So merry, so kind, so frank a youth,
In moments of pleasure a smile all mirth,
In moments of sorrow a heart of truth.
I have heard thee praised, I have seen thee led
By Fashion along her gay career;
While beautiful lips have often shed
Their flattering poison in thine ear."
Yet he says that the poet was unspoiled. On his honeymoon, at Lord
Ashdown's, Mr.
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