Jeremy Taylor

“ The things that are seen are temporal, and they will deceive us. Let our hearts be carried after the other, and rest in them forever!
JEREMY TAYLOR CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Jeremy Taylor, born in Cambridge, England, in 1613, was the son of a barber. By his talents he obtained an entrance into Caius College, where his exceptional progress obtained for him admission to the ministry in his twenty-first year, two years before the canonical age. ”

“ Taylor.—One of the greatest names in the annals of the English Church and of English literature is that of Jeremy Taylor. He was the son of a barber, and was born at Cambridge in 1613. A remarkably clever youth, he was educated at Cambridge, and soon owed his preferment to his talents, eloquence, and learning. An adherent of the king, he was appointed chaplain in the royal army, and was several times imprisoned. When the king's cause went down, and during the protectorate of Cromwell, he retired to Wales, where he kept a school, and was also chaplain to the Earl of Carberry. ”

“ No preacher of the day is more golden-mouthed than Jeremy Taylor. If he is not, nevertheless, widely read, it is because of the limitation of his thought and the somewhat Sunday-school character of his ethical teaching. He hardly comes into close enough contact with the realities and conditions of everyday life.
There was no lack of either sermons or treatises on the Puritan side of the controversy which agitated the century. Not many, however, belong to literature. ”

“ There is in existence a precious old album containing the handwriting of many renowned men, such as Luther, Erasmus, Mosheim, and others. The last-mentioned has written, in Latin, the following remarkable words: "Renown is a source of toil and sorrow; obscurity is a source of happiness." "Does he not drink more sweetly that takes his beverage in an earthen vessel," asks Jeremy Taylor, "than he that looks and searches into his golden chalices, for fear of poison, and looks pale at every sudden noise, and sleeps in armor, and trusts nobody, and does not trust God for safety?" ”

“ In this respect Jeremy Taylor may be said to be Latimer turned into Latin. Jeremy Taylor is as full of classical allusions as a king's palace is full of rare treasures, and his language is of the lofty order which more becomes a patrician audience than a popular assembly; but when you come to the essence of things, you see that if Latimer is homely, so also Taylor narrates incidents which are [40] homely to him; but his home is among philosophers of Greece and senators of Rome. This being understood, we venture to say that no one used more anecdotes than this splendid poet-preacher. ”

“ Taylor was burnt at Hadleigh. He had formerly been chaplain in the house of Cranmer, who gave him the living of Hadleigh. Taylor, an ancestor of the pious and eloquent Jeremy Taylor, was a man of a singular boldness and promptness in avowing his opinions. The change in the State religion soon manifested itself in his church. The rector of the neighbouring parish of Aldham, on Mary's accession, presented himself at Hadleigh Church to celebrate mass, because Taylor firmly refused to perform it himself. ”

“ Narrowness is his fault. But the intense individuality which often accompanies narrowness is his great virtue—a virtue which no poet, which no writer either in verse or prose, has ever had in greater measure than he, and [Pg 330] which hardly any has been able to express with more varied and exquisite harmony.
Jeremy Taylor, the ornament and glory of the English pulpit, was born at Cambridge in 1613. ”

“ His father, a poor tanner, apprenticed him to his own trade. Peers, however, ran away to Bristol, whence an uncle sent him to a school in Carmarthenshire. It is stated on doubtful authority that the master was Jeremy Taylor, and that by Taylor's intercession Peers became a scholar at Westminster under Busby. ”

“ 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.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, Taylor’s recovery has been long. And it has been arduous. And it’s captivated the nation. A few months after the attack, with the help of prosthetics, the love and support of his family, and above all his girlfriend Danielle, who never left his side, Taylor wasn’t just walking again. In a video that went viral, the world watched he and Danielle dance again. I’ve often said the most humbling part of my job is serving as Commander-in-Chief. And one of the reasons is that, every day, I get to meet heroes. I met Taylor at Walter Reed. ”

“ If unwearied devotion through nearly forty years to the literary life, great fecundity in production, much taste, no little scholarship, and unquestioned sincerity in the exercise of his art entitle one to be called by the honorable name of man of letters, who is more deserving than the author of The Masque of the Gods? To be sure, only a few of his many books are read. But Taylor is in no worse case than many men who tower giant-fashion above him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Three years later he was apprenticed to a firm of manufacturers in Norwich, after which he passed two years as a clerk in London. He there began to contribute verses to the ‘Morning Chronicle.’ In 1773 he returned to Norwich, and started a yarn factory in partnership with his younger brother Richard.
Taylor was active in municipal and social affairs at Norwich, and was a prominent member of the Octagon presbyterian unitarian chapel, of which he acted as deacon. He devoted his leisure to literary pursuits, and his verse and hymns were held in wide repute. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sir Henry Taylor is pre-eminently the statesman among English poets. When he can speak poetically in this character he is impressive, almost great; when he deals with the more prosaic aspects of policy he is dignified and weighty, without being altogether a poet when his theme is entirely unrelated to the conduct of public affairs or private life he is usually little more than an accomplished man of letters. ”

“ A time of trial was approaching, a trial that was to decide whether the good seed sown by the pious parents had taken root in good soil, and was able to endure the ordeal of strong temptation.
Jem Taylor, the only one who ever showed poor Will any kindness, knowing of his great love for painting,—for to him only had he shown his little charcoal sketches—had no regard for truth, and, on account of his naturally kind and liberal disposition, was only the more dangerous as a companion for our hitherto differently trained hero. ”

“ She was buried with her husband, who refers to her in terms of affection. A portrait of Taylor is at Watermen's Hall, which shows him, as Wood remarks, to have been of a ‘quick and smart countenance.’ Another picture of him is in the Bodleian Library, to which it was presented in 1655 by the artist, his nephew, John Taylor, a portrait-painter practising at Oxford; this has been engraved. The nephew's portrait, painted by himself, is also in the Bodleian, and has also been engraved. A whole-length portrait of Taylor is before his ‘Memorial of all the English Monarchs,’ 1622 ”

“ Taylor's inclinations are for scenes of grandeur. Sublime human actions, nature in her awful revolutionary states, the wild desolation of a mountain peak or a limitless desert, the storm, the earthquake, the cataract, the moaning forest—these are the chief inspirations of his powers. Whatever is suggestive of high emotions, that act upon his moral nature, and in turn are acted upon by it, forms an unconquerable incentive to his poetical exertions. Mere word-painting he has no affection for. ”

“ The uncommon thought is too likely if not too certain to be an uncommon conceit, and if not worthless, yet of inferior worth. Among prose writers Taylor is unequalled for his touches of this universal material, for the genius with which he makes the common uncommon. For instance, he has the supreme faculty of always making the verbal and the intellectual presentation of the thought alike beautiful, of appealing to the ear and the mind at the same time, of never depriving the apple of gold of its picture of silver. ”

“ Taylor there is a just equipoise of the moral and intellectual natures, while the sensual nature, if not so strong as the former two, is at least calmed and subdued by their united power. With fine animal spirits, he has but little taste for gross animal enjoyments ”

“ Taylor, whose position at left-field Phil coveted, was playing his second year on the team, and felt his importance as a veteran who had already been tested under fire in a Hillbury game. He had the name of being a great hitter, and though his work during the season so far had not borne out this reputation, he occasionally made long drives that delighted the great mass of student supporters whose admiration is as intense as it is fitful. He was a safe catch on flies, and now and then did spectacular feats that had the same effect on the spectators as the occasional three-baggers. ”

“ I have likewise the only complete file of the Phœnixville Pioneer, a number of autograph poems and a series of his letters.
More vivid by far than that of Taylor is the mental image of the dog “Jerry,” a household pet of more than ordinary intelligence. He regularly went to the post-office for the mail. He carried a basket to the market and brought home the things bought. He would hunt a glove hidden in a closet in the house and never cease from his efforts until it was secured. ”

“ Taylor’s bearing in this battle was marked by every trait that ennobles a hero. But his victory had not relieved him from the danger that over-shadowed his little host. He had won glory, but not safety. Should he advance, it must be against an enemy overpowering in his superiority of numbers, and with an advantage of position. A council was held on the early morn of the next day. Its advice was against an advance; Gen. Taylor closed its deliberations by declaring that, if living, he would sleep that night in Fort Brown. The army advanced against the foe. ”

“ Shortly after his retirement from the House of Commons, on November 17, 1911, the subject of this sketch was summoned to the Senate, and since his appointment to the Upper Chamber has taken an active part in its deliberations. On retiring from the House of Commons, he received a handsome testimonial of esteem from his colleagues. Hon. Mr. Taylor, during his career in public life, has always received the good will of all classes of citizens. He is the soul of good humor, broadminded, generous and a liberal gentleman, and has been called “The John Hampden” of this Dominion. ”