George Taylor

“ John Taylor, a most intelligent and excellent woman, mild and unassuming, quiet and meek, sitting amidst her large family, occupied with her needle and domestic occupations, but always assisting, by her great knowledge, the advancement of kind and dignified sentiment and conduct. ”

“ Testimony of the Great Powers for Poesy, innate in MICHAEL ANGELO TAYLOR, Esq.
DR. BURNEY. I shall myself compose Mr. Taylor’s Ode——His merit I admire——his origin I have traced.—He is descended from Mr. John Taylor, the famous Water Poet, who with good natural talents, never proceeded farther in education than his accidence.—John Taylor was born in Gloucestershire.—I find that he was bound apprentice to a Waterman—but in process of time kept a public house in Phœnix-alley, Long-acre [1] . ”

“ Young Salt Lake City Children. Name. When Born. Where Born. When Died. Where died. Father's Name Mother's Name George John Taylor Jan. 31, 1834 Near Toronto, Canada John Taylor Leonora Taylor Mary Ann Taylor Jan. 23, 1836 Toronto, Canada Dec. 9, 1890 San Francisco do do Joseph James Taylor June 8, 1838 Near Indianapolis, Ind. do do Leonora Agnes Taylor June 1, 1842 Nauvoo, Ills. Sep. 10, 1843 Nauvoo, Ills. do do Josephine Taylor March 15, 1846 Nauvoo, Ills. do Elizabeth Taylor Thomas Edward Taylor Nov. 7, 1849 Salt Lake City, Utah do do Arthur Bruce Taylor Oct. ”

“ His philology is helpless word-play. The attraction of his discourses was in his jocose manner; they exhibit no real humour, but his taunts are smart. His drollery, though of a low type, is never impure.
Released from gaol in 1833, Taylor retired from public view. He married an elderly lady of property; the marriage was a happy one, but it exposed Taylor to an action for breach of promise on the part of Miss Richards, to whom a jury awarded 250l. To escape paying this, Taylor removed to France, practising as a surgeon at Tours, where he died in September 1844. ”

“ His ‘Tales of Yore,’ 1810, 3 vols. 8vo (anon.) , was a collection of prose translations from French and German, begun in 1807. In May 1811 the stoppage of his father's London agent involved a loss of 200l. a year from an income already curtailed through American losses. A competence remained, but Taylor felt keenly the social consequences of a reduced style of living. ”

“ When we think of his birth, training, and surroundings—the child of the plantation and the graduate of the forecastle—and contrast this with his peculiar powers, his strange career, and above all in rarity his wonderful world-wide mission, it is not too much to say that Father Taylor is without a parallel in American history. “An impulsive, untrained, and erratic genius;” there was a fixed purpose and a continuity of effort, such as is seen in few lives. If extravagant in speech and inconsistent in views, his intensity, vividness, and realism, make all sound like plain common-sense. ”

“ The disturbed state of the continent being unfavourable to the prospects of their trade, he persuaded his father to retire on the fortune already made. The firm was dissolved in 1791; his father employed part of his capital in underwriting, not very successfully. Resisting his father's wish to put him into a London bank, Taylor gave himself henceforth to literature. He had already completed the three poetic translations which secured the recognition of his power to present German poetry in an English dress. ”

“ The outrages of England upon our commerce fired every generous spirit in the west, and as early as 1808, about the time when the outrage upon the Chesapeake thrilled through every nerve of the republic, young Taylor determined to wed his fortunes with those of his country. The character and the influence of his family readily secured him a commission as lieutenant in the seventh infantry. He addressed himself with characteristic ardor to his profession, and before the war broke out, had arisen to the rank of captain. ”

“ At the age of twenty, having mastered the business of turner, young Taylor left Penrith, and in the town of Hale started business for himself, under the auspices of his father. Shortly after this, in 1830, his father and family emigrated to Upper Canada, leaving him to dispose of some unsold property and settle the affairs of the estate. ”

“ They settled in an old border-tower at Witton-le-Wear, Durham, remote from all society. Henry Taylor began to make up for the defects of his education, read Latin, a little Greek, and a great deal of Italian, and sat up, indulging in poetical reveries and drinking more tea than was good for him. He wrote Byronic poems and an article upon Moore, which in 1822 was accepted for the ‘Quarterly Review’ by Gifford. Taylor's mind was also stimulated by the warm sympathy and approval of his stepmother and of Isabella Fenwick, the intimate friend of Wordsworth. ”

“ Price hurried up the long driveway to the seminary. She was going home, and, being small and round and oldish, she panted and bubbled a little in her haste. Even her exactly appropriate garb, patterned closely on “correct and distinctive styles for more mature figures,” and her very sober little hat, shaped like a sugar-bowl, palpitated with undue excitement.
She burst in upon the dean and Fanny, who were quietly enjoying a cup of tea in the sunny little sitting-room, where a yellow rose showered its golden buds against the wide stone sills of the bay window. ”

“ A hard worker, he tried to exact hard work from others. He covered a sensitive nature by a formality which kept others at a distance. He was as shy, says Taylor, 'as a wild duck,' but often showed it oddly by talking so continuously as to leave no opening for an answer. In private, as Taylor testifies, his conversation was equally abundant and singularly rich and forcible. Though living in London for many years, he went little into society. The delicacy of his youngest son induced him in 1840 to take a house at Brighton for his family, to which he could make only weekly visits. ”

“ One great clump of bushes opposite choked the entrance to the cellar.
“I have seen enough, and been through enough, to realise my difficulties,” I said calmly, “but what is a man’s right arm for, Maître le Bastien, if it be not to fight in a good cause? I will not allow even Sophia to snatch my wife away, and I will not leave her in the hands of her enemies. But tell me, how fares it with you? I would not imperil you.”
“I am safe enough,” he replied at once. “Galitsyn will protect me; against me he has no quarrel, and has sent some Streltsi already to keep my house from the mob. ”

“ Among that brave band of men who had the courage to thus proclaim their rights, and dared to maintain them even against the United States, none were more bold or fearless than John Taylor. In speech and action he went as far as he who went farthest. In the council chamber and in the field he was in the front rank; shoulder to shoulder he stood with President Young and his brethren, and his public discourses in those times glow with a soul-stirring eloquence that reminds one of the spirit of the Revolutionary patriots of '76. ”

“ Taylor is rapt and solitary, living in the world of his own ideas. Nevertheless, his singleness of purpose, accuracy of statement, genuine humor, originality of ideas, and clear, effective speaking never fail to secure for him a respectful hearing, however distasteful may be the subject of his address. At home he is a delightful host, an inveterate joker of jokes. His wife, a lady of great accomplishments, is hardly behind him in zeal for the public good. Every post brings heaps of letters from aggrieved subjects of her Majesty in all parts of the world. ”

“ Not even during his peaceable abode at Uppingham do Taylor’s great works appear to have been projected, as if his amiable, affectionate, and zealous temper had been fully occupied by domestic cares and pleasures, and by the constant though quiet duties of a parish priest. The year 1642, as it witnessed the overthrow of his domestic happiness by his wife’s death, saw also the beginning of those troubles which cast him out of his church preferment, a homeless man. We do not know the date of the sequestration of his living; but as he joined Charles I. at Oxford in the autumn of the year ”

“ He apprenticed his son to Sir Henry Cheere [q. v.] the sculptor, and sent him to study at Rome. Returning to England on receiving the news of his father's death, Taylor found himself penniless; but he had good friends in the Godfrey family of Woodford, Essex, who enabled him to make a start as a sculptor. The monuments to Cornwall and Guest at Westminster Abbey (1743–6) and the figure of Britannia in the centre of the principal façade of the old Bank of England are his work. ”

“ In home politics Taylor was an advanced radical, and in his persistent opposition to government extravagance and social inequalities of the pettier kind he may be regarded as the chief custodian for his time of the political principles of the Manchester school. In every English movement for the promotion of freedom he took a keen interest, and generally occupied an official position. ”

“ In 1753 he was instituted to the rectory of Ovington, Hampshire, resigning Wheatfield. In 1755 he was instituted to the rectory of Crawley, Hampshire, which he held with Portsmouth, resigning Ovington. Like his father, he was noted as a wit and a writer of humorous epigram. His graceful verses on wedlock, ‘Paradise Regain'd,’ are in Dodsley's ‘Collection’ (1758, vi. 126) .
Taylor was among the last of the Anglican divines of the Clarkean school; but he outran his master, openly espousing the Apollinarian heresy. ”

“ Taylor was educated at Samuel White's academy in Dublin, the school of Richard Sheridan and Thomas Moore, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he entered in 1809. He obtained a scholarship in 1812, graduated in 1814, and was a prominent member of the college historical (debating) society. In 1824 Taylor was called to the English bar by the society of the Middle Temple, and settled in London, where, in conjunction with Thomas Crofton Croker [q. v.] ”

“ TAYLOR, THOMAS (1758–1835) , Platonist, son of Joseph Taylor, staymaker, of St. Martin's-le-Grand, London, was born on 15 May 1758, and was admitted on 10 April 1767 at St. Paul's school. He was removed after three years, during which he suffered more by the cane than he profited by the classics. Three years later, having meanwhile taken a fancy to mathematics and Mary Morton, daughter of a coal merchant in Doctors' Commons, he was placed at Sheerness, under charge of his father's brother-in-law, who was employed in the dockyard. ”

“ Taylor died at Ashbourne on 29 Feb. 1788, and was buried in Ashbourne church, tradition says in the nave, on 3 March. His second wife was Mary, daughter of Roger Tuckfield of Fulford, Devonshire. They did not live together happily, and in August 1763 she left him.
Taylor, who had no child that lived, disappointed his nieces by leaving all his property—1,200l. a year besides personalty—to a boy, William Brunt (b. 1772) , who had been engaged as a page. It was stipulated that the legatee should take the name of Webster, which had long been connected with this family of Taylor. ”

“ During President Taylor's residency in the White House there were many illustrious men in the Senate and holding other high positions. The rivalries and jealousies in politics reached an alarming height, and as General Taylor was the victim upon whom was visited many attacks and much vituperation, his brave spirit finally succumbed, and he died July 9, 1850, surrounded by his deeply afflicted family. Accompanied by her daughter Mrs. Taylor obtained a home among her relations in Kentucky, but soon became very unhappy, because of the continued manifestations of sympathy. ”

“ I will go right cheerfully, and I thank you for it, uncle.”
Sir William laid his hand upon her shoulder.
“My wench,” he said, not unkindly, “think not so ill of me that I begrudge my orphan niece her bread. I did but try you. I had no wish for you to wed this Henge, though there [151] be many worse, for men are not the paragons of a young maid’s dreams. But you will meet him at Greenwich, and mark me, Betty, bear yourself courteously toward him. ’Tis said of him that he has the spite and venom of a spider, and he is mad with love of that fair face of yours ”

“ In the midst of the feasting and dancing, singing and rejoicing, the Saints did not forget to thank and praise the Power which had given them the rich fruits of the earth; and expressions of gratitude—soul-felt and universal—in prayer and speech, occurred as frequently as song or dance.
In all these anxieties, labors, fears, hopes and rejoicings, Elder Taylor took part. Many leaned on his strength in those days. When despair settled over the colony he infused it with hope; when the weak faltered, he strengthened them; when the fearful trembled, he encouraged them ”

“ Taylor was a whig in politics, an enthusiastic member of Trinity College, Dublin, and an ardent advocate for a system of national education in Ireland. His zeal in that cause was much appreciated by Archbishop Whately, who became his patron and friend. After the commercial crisis of 1842 he went to Lancashire to study its industries and the life of its operatives. ”

“ Taylor is chiefly known in connexion with the Metropolitan Paving Act of 1817, which is still referred to as “Michael Angelo Taylor’s Act.” Often called “Chicken Taylor” because of his reference to himself as a “mere chicken in the law,” he is described by Sir Spencer Walpole as “a pompous harrister, with a little body and a loud voice.” Taylor’s father, Sir Robert, was the founder of the Taylorian Institution at Oxford. ”