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It is chiefly of interest for its associations with the poet Hayley, who lived at Eartham House, now the residence of Sir P. Milbanke. The house became for a time the rendezvous of many celebrities, including Cowper, Flaxman, Blake and Romney.
It is true, indeed, that the attention of the possessor of Eartham was considerably engrossed by meditation and study; but this increased rather than lessened his adaptation to society, and made the effect of his seclusion the more to be lamented." Hayley's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 220.
"Another failing observable in the character of Hayley, was the little attention he paid to public opinion, in regard to his modes and habits of life. During his long residence in his paternal seat of Eartham, though he occasionally received friends from a distance, and especially the votaries of literature and the fine arts, yet to the families in his vicinity he was not easily accessible.
At the distance of a mile south of Halnaker, Stane Street is reached at a point about four miles from Chichester. There are, however, still some interesting places to be seen before, for almost the last time, we turn west. These include Boxgrove, which must on no account be missed. Eartham is a beautifully situated village about two miles directly east of Halnaker.
Cowper, who visited him at Eartham, in 1792, speaks of the house as "the most elegant mansion he had ever inhabited, surrounded by the most delightful pleasure grounds he had ever seen," and observes "he had no conception that a poet could be the owner of such a paradise." The house was built, and the pleasure grounds laid out by himself.
From the time that he left London, in 1774, till his death, a period of 46 years, he was seldom long absent from his home, first at Eartham, and afterwards at Felpham, a pleasant village on the sea-shore, distant only a few miles from his former residence.
Ficks, "Joe" Hesketh, Matthew Fircombe, Lord Boxgrove, old Tommy Lawson, "Bill", Mr. Compton, Mr. Mannering, his son, Mr. William Mannering, and his nephew Mr. Muntzer, Mr. Eartham, dear, courteous, old-world Squire Howle, and that prime favourite, Lord Mann. "Sambo" Courthorpe, Ring, the Coffee-cooler, and Harry Sark, with all the Forfarshire lot, also fell under my eye, as did Maxwell, Mr. Gam
'Beloved and honoured Titiano! she wrote, some years later; 'how that name recalls the happy, happy hours I passed with you at Eartham; when by the title 'Muse' you summoned me to the morning walk! Amongst the drossy twaddle which passed current as poetry at Eartham, a sonnet in Romney's honour by a true poet William Cowper may be counted as pure gold.
Felpham is now the eastern suburb of Bognor, and is linked to the town by a small bungalow colony. Here Hayley came after selling Eartham, but the place is now more famous for its associations with the poet's friend Blake, who lived for three years in the small thatched cottage which still stands at the seaward end of the village.
But it must be done. His annual retirement for a month's holiday to Hayley's house at Eartham was of little real service to his health. He was compelled the while to attitudinize incessantly as a genius.
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