Influence
Hervey had a lasting impact on art through William Blake, who was an admirer of his. Blake painted Epitome of James Hervey's Meditations among the Tombs between 1820 and 1825. Hervey is also mentioned in Blake's work as one of the holy guards to the 'four-fold gate', and his influence on Blake's poem The Tyger has also been noted.
In addition to this, the sombre and sweeping tone of his Meditations Among The Tombs (for example, "the dreadful pleasure inspired by gazing at fallen monuments and mouldering tombs") has led to his being placed amongst the 18th Century 'Graveyard School' of poets, rendering his work an important influence on Horace Walpole’s 'The Castle of Otranto' of 1764 and consequently, the entire genre of Gothic Literature and the later Romanticism which the genre fuelled.
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