Complying with a request by Cowper that he share the poem he wrote to George Romney which he sent to Hayley; saying "Carissimo Pittore / This graceful & charming compliment to yr Talents arrived here last night with a request that if I thought it would please you I should transmit it to yr Hand - Your little Fairy Tom hoped to have had the pleasure of writing you a Spritely Letter this morning as Secretary to our dear Bard of Weston but alas the poor little Fellow is at this moment tormented with pains in the Face that [ren]der Him unable to hold a pen - I will not however detain from you ever for a single post a delightful Tribute to yr Genius from a Poet so dear to us both - excuse this brief scrawl as all my nerves are aching with sympathetic anguish while my poor child is leaning against my Bosom / God bless you / ever yr affectionate / WH."

Reminiscences of George Romney, for whom Pocock worked during Romney's declining years.

In the 1930s he established himself as a wide-ranging Shakespearean actor. His marriage in 1940 to Vivien Leigh (his second wife) seemed to complete the image of the romantic star. From the mid-40s he excelled in directing himself in Shakespeare on film, such as his dramatically-shot Henry V (1944), with its timely excesses of patriotism. When the new wave of British drama began in the late 1950s, Olivier was immediately part of it. As an actor of such wide range, and a successful producer and director, Olivier was a natural choice to bring the National Theatre into existence in 1963. Together with his new wife Joan Plowright (they had married in 1961), he built up a brilliant company and repertoire at the Old Vic. Olivier became the first actor to be given a peerage.