Bayard Taylor

“ It is not known that any of Bayard Taylor’s ancestry were literary men, or that any of them were endowed with special genius, beyond that which was necessary to clear the forests, cultivate the soil, manage manufacturing enterprises, and carry on small mercantile establishments. Solid people, with wide common-sense, industrious hands and generous hearts, they have modestly held their way, doing their simple duty, and, Quaker-like, making no display. ”

“ Bayard Taylor was not a great genius, and he did not succeed in winning quite all of that high fame for which he struggled throughout his life. He never expected to have earth's blessings showered upon him without working for them; and the fact that he failed somewhat in his highest ambition—to be a far-famed poet—makes his life seem nearer to our own. We call him a great man because he did well what came to him to do, working hard all his life. ”

“ Taylor. In his address made at Mr. Taylor’s funeral in Berlin, where were gathered a large number of such men as Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, Prof. Lepsius, Paul Lindau, Julius Rodenberg, Prof. Gneist, Dr. Lowe, Count Lehndorff, and numerous government officials, he thus addressed the mourning friends:—
“Here, under flowers which have grown on German soil, rests the perishable encasing wherein for fifty-three years was enshrined the richly-endowed spirit which bore the name of Bayard Taylor. ”

“ Taylor, and few have written better. Those of us who know how he owed nothing to chance, how methodical and painstaking he was, how he conquered difficulties which would have dismayed a weaker man, are in a position to judge of his merits, and to accord to him words of praise, little as he needs them, which have a specific meaning.”
James T. Fields, in the tributes published in the “Tribune,” gave this sketch of the acquaintance and friendship existing between Mr. Taylor and himself:—
“The death of a man like Bayard Taylor, awakens universal sorrow. ”

“ But to those students who love scientific scrutiny, who would estimate the life for what it is really worth as an example, the biography which is written amid all the facts, and by one who comes in actual contact with them, is perhaps esteemed the most valuable, although, as a whole, less symmetrical.
Bayard Taylor’s life was rugged and cragged with startling events, when viewed from the kindly poetical stand-point of his character. He felt all the extremes of joy and sorrow. He knew all the pains and honors of poverty and wealth. He was loved by many, he was betrayed by many. ”

“ Dear Sir:—Nothing but an imperative engagement elsewhere could keep me from uniting with those friends of my friend—Bayard Taylor—who propose next Friday, in Boston, to commemorate his life and virtues. From our professional association, I could not but know him intimately, and he was one of the few men of distinction with whom every added year of intimacy continued to brighten, not merely your affection, but also your respect. The essential characteristic alike of his life, and his work, was its inherent honesty. ”

“ Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for permission to use extracts from the Poetical Works of Lowell.]
THE STORY OF BAYARD TAYLOR [Illustration: BAYARD TAYLOR.]
BAYARD TAYLOR CHAPTER I HIS BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD Bayard Taylor was born in the country village of Kennett Square, Chester County, Pennsylvania, Jan. 11, 1825, "the year when the first locomotive successfully performed its trial trip. I am, therefore," he says, "just as old as the railroad." He was descended from Robert Taylor, a rich Friend, or Quaker, who had come to Pennsylvania with William Penn in 1681, and settled near Brandywine Creek. ”

“ Thirty-two years ago, on a bright spring morning, a [350] young man of twenty-three held out his hand to me, and introduced himself as Bayard Taylor. We had corresponded at intervals since his first little volume was published in 1844, but we had never met until then. He had come to Boston, rather unexpectedly, he said, to see Longfellow, and Holmes, and Whipple, and some others, who had expressed an interest in his ‘Views Afoot,’ then recently printed in book-form. No one could possibly look upon the manly young fellow at that time without loving him. ”

“ Perhaps I have now said enough; but permit me to speak briefly of one, still mentally bright under the weight of fourscore years, the mother of Bayard Taylor, to whom we must be indebted for much of the honor her son has given us. The latent genius of the mother was more fully developed in the son, and guarded, strengthened, and encouraged by her watchful mind, he became all that she could desire. ”

“ My nature is not a reverent one, I fear, but I looked up to Bayard Taylor, and admired his beautiful genius. We read and criticised each other’s verse a good deal too lightly and generously, I have since thought, and talked of the poets whom we were studying. It was his fancy that there was something in his genius which was allied to that of Shelley, and I hoped that I might claim some relationship with Keats, enough at least to make me a ‘poor relation.’ We talked [338] long and late ”

“ This book had a moderate success, but neither in it nor in its successors did Bayard Taylor betray any special talent as a novelist. In 1874 he, went to Iceland, to report for the Tribune the one thousandth anniversary of the first settlement there. In June 1878 he was accredited United States minister at Berlin. Notwithstanding the resistless passion for travel which had always possessed him, Bayard Taylor was (when not actually en route) sedentary in his habits, especially in the later years of his life. ”

“ The news of Bayard Taylor’s death called forth universal expressions of regret. The press, secular and religious, mentioned his decease with extended editorial comment upon his useful and honorable life. Public meetings were held to pay tribute to his memory, and the Congress of the United States passed a bill making Mrs. Taylor a gift of seven thousand dollars, as a mark of the nation’s appreciation of Mr. Taylor’s services.
In Germany, memorial services were held, at which the greatest literary men of that empire made addresses, showing their appreciation of Mr. ”

“ Bayard Taylor, the poet, the traveller, the biographer, the botanist, the patriot, the plenipotentiary, whom we so justly mourn, came up out of this land. He was a true son [329] of our soil, which has always produced patriots. ”

“ I have spent many happy nights with my dead friend, but none which were so happy as those. I looked forward to them as young men look forward to holidays which they have planned. I look back upon them as old men look back to their past delights, with pity and regret.
“The world, as I have said, considered Bayard Taylor as a traveller, and it was his pleasure, as well as his profit, during the first years of our friendship, to travel largely in California, in Egypt, in Japan, and elsewhere in the Old World. ”

“ I have rarely been so moved as when I saw a strong, proud man exhibit such an attachment for me.... I told him all my history, and showed him the portrait I have with me [that of Mary Agnew] . He went out of the cabin after looking at it, and when he returned I saw that he had been weeping."
Surely, there must have been something peculiarly noble and sweet in Bayard Taylor's nature to have drawn to him so powerfully a man of another nation and another race. The friendship was lasting, and Taylor spent many happy weeks at Mr. ”

“ Bayard felt compensated there for all the sufferings, by sea and by land, which he had experienced. He gazed fondly upon the glassy, land-locked water; he studied closely the features, manners, and songs of the Highland boatmen, those descendants of the old clans; he sketched, with the keenest interest, Ben Ann, Ben Venue, the gate of the Trosachs, and the curved lines of the sandy shore, and he awoke the echoes at the Goblin’s Gave and Beal-nam-bo. Rich experiences! In such does the youth develop fast into a cultured manhood. ”

“ After a few weeks of farm life he was apprenticed to a printer in West
Chester for a term of four years.
CHAPTER III HIS FIRST POEM It is the will and the spirit that makes every life seem happy or the reverse. If Bayard Taylor had remained a farmer in Kennett Square all his life, he would not have looked back on his early experiences with so much pleasure as he did. ”

“ Independent of the public relations of duty, it is well to pause to do honor to one who has so faithfully and well served his country, and his kind. I have the deepest sensibilities [335] of remembrance of Bayard Taylor’s personal kindness to me on many occasions, and especially as his guest, to incite me to be present.
“I am glad that Massachusetts, in the meeting you assemble, will show her appreciation of his character and services, and regret, with more than ordinary emotion, that I am prevented from taking part in it. ”

“ He is well read in history, but not in art or science or poetry. His stories are admirable when he is in convivial mood; all sit around him in silent admiration, for no one dares more than suggest the topic,--he does all the talking himself. Bayard Taylor, when United States minister at Berlin, was amazed and confounded by his freedom of speech and apparent candor. ”

“ The ancestry of Bayard Taylor were connected with some of the best blood of England and Germany. His grandmothers were both German, and his grandfathers both English. The German line comes from that body of emigrants, consisting of large numbers from Weimar, Jena, Cassel, Göttingen, Hanover, and perhaps Gotha, who sailed from Bremen and Hamburg between 1730 and 1745. The continued quarrels among the dukes and princes of Germany,—the wars in progress and impending, wherein the peace of the people was incessantly disturbed,—caused a universal uneasiness among the people of those small nations. ”

“ There have been but few incidents of American life more pathetic and remarkable than the spontaneous exhibition of love and admiration by the people of Mr. Taylor’s native town, when his body was taken there for burial. The silent and uncovered crowds, the tears, the regrets, the stories of his kindness, the honest acts of deference, the noble reception of any one who had been his friend, all served to make up a most unusual tribute to the memory of a great man. ”

“ Taylor generously rescued him, there somehow opens a way out from such ventures, which is found on the very verge of starvation and despair. But the trait of character, which in Bayard commanded such respect, was something so unusual, that his daring example cannot be safely followed by the multitude. It is far better to have a supply of money for the necessary expenses of travel in Europe or Asia, than to run risks for the sake of the romance which Bayard found in such straits. ”

“ I believe that poetry owns as its true sphere the happiness of mankind."
What could be nobler and more sensible than that! Even his earliest poetry has in it no false, slipshod sentiment. Its subject is nature and heroic incident, and is indeed a faithful attempt to carry out the aim so well stated above. Some have doubted whether Bayard Taylor really had the power which he says he thinks is given to all who have the ambition which he felt. But none can fail to admire the spirit in which he worked, and to feel satisfied with the results, whatever they may be. ”

“ Such was Holmes’ eulogy of Whittier. With it we may take leave of New England.
Bayard Taylor.—A Quaker poet of a different stamp was the meteoric Bayard Taylor (1825–78) . His boyhood was distinguished by a passion for roving and for collecting objects of natural history. His devotion to books and his distaste for labour on a Pennsylvania farm did not always please his father, who laughed boisterously, however, when a phrenologist said of the son: “You will never make a farmer of him to any great extent: you will never keep him home ”

“ He loves humanity and humanity responds to the love.
He has always won the affection of those who knew him, and Bayard Taylor was one of the many; he and Bayard Taylor loved each other for long acquaintance and fellow experiences as world-wide travelers, back in the years when comparatively few Americans visited the Nile and the Orient, or even Europe.
When Taylor died there was a memorial service in Boston at which Conwell was asked to preside, and, as he wished for something more than addresses, he went to Longfellow and asked him to write and read a poem for the occasion. ”

“ Among the poets of the time only a few of the more prominent can be named. Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) is equally distinguished as a poet and prose writer of fiction and travels. His translation of Faust in the original metre is accepted as the best representation of the German master in the English tongue, and apart from its merits as a translation, it has added to the literature by the beauty and power of its versification. His poem of "Deukalion" shows great originality and power of imagination. ”

“ Bayard Taylor’s peculiarities as a poet are the same which have won him so much popularity as a man, and refer to his character as well as his mind. Fine, however as is the impression conveyed by his numerous prose works, we think that no reader can carefully peruse the present volume without feeling that the best embodiment of the man is in these poems. They are thoroughly genuine, recording the thoughts and aspirations nearest and dearest to the author’s heart and brain, and o’erinformed with the life of a thoughtful, imaginative and genial nature. ”

“ I never have seen another dumb creature that was so morbidly sensitive. Bayard Taylor, who could interpret the dim reasonings of animals, and understood their moral natures better than most men, would have found some way to make this poor old chap forget his troubles for a while, but we have not his kindly art, and so had to leave the raven to his griefs. ”