Biographer, historian, theologian, poet, and critic, Dyer was known for his congeniality despite his personal eccentricities. His poetry appeared in Poems (1792), The Poet's Fate (1797), Poems (1801), and Poems and Critical Essays (1802). Poetics, or a Series of Poems and Disquisitions on Poetry (1812) defends his poetic method, which some of his contemporaries had criticized as misguided.