Richard Taylor

“ One evening, as Richard, in displaying his collection, brought to view the blood-red leaf of a gum-tree, Asenath exclaimed—
“Ah, there is the sign! It is early, this year.”
“What sign?” he asked.
“That the summer is over. We shall soon have frosty nights, and then nothing will be left for us except the asters and gentians and golden-rods.”
Was the time indeed so near? A few more weeks, and this Arcadian life would close. He must go back to the city, to its rectilinear streets, its close brick walls, its artificial, constrained existence. ”

“ He died at Edmonton on 17 Oct. 1807, aged 77, and was buried in Edmonton churchyard, where there is a monument to him. Taylor’s style was finished, his workmanship sound, and his plates were supposed to wear better at the press than those of any other engraver of the time. He laid the foundation of that ornamental style of library decoration in which at the close of the last century English craftsmanship won decided triumphs over that of the continent. Among Taylor’s personal friends, besides Bewick, were Garrick, Goldsmith, Bartolozzi, Richard Smirke, and Fuseli. ”

“ Richard Hilton laughed merrily at the gravity with which she uttered the last sentence.
“Why, Miss—Asenath, I mean—what am I good for; if I have not strength enough to carry a basket?”
“Thee's a man, I know, and I think a man would almost as lief be thought wicked as weak. Thee can't help being weakly-inclined, and it's only right that thee should be careful of thyself. There's surely nothing in that that thee need be ashamed of.” ”

“ 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.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ His acquaintances in America included nearly every living author of his generation, and he numbered among his intimate friends the most gifted men in the land. Nearest to him, perhaps, stood Richard H. Stoddard, of New York, and his talented wife, Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard. Both were born in Massachusetts, and have frequently spent the summer months at Mrs. Stoddard’s old home in Mattapoisett, in company with Mr. Taylor and his family. A jolly household it was, when the Taylors and the Stoddards united their families, as they frequently did, in the city, or on the seashore. ”

“ TAYLOR, ROBERT (1784–1844) , deistical writer, sixth son of John and Elizabeth Taylor, was born at Walnut Tree House, Edmonton, Middlesex, on 18 Aug. 1784. His father, a prosperous ironmonger in Fenchurch Street, London, died when he was young, leaving him under the guardianship of his uncle, Edward Farmer Taylor of Chicken Hall, Bridgnorth, Shropshire. Having been at school under John Adams at Edmonton, he was articled as house pupil to Samuel Partridge [see under Partridge, Richard] , then house surgeon at the Birmingham general hospital. In 1805 he walked Guy's and St. ”

“ The great majority of the audience consisted of literary persons and of officials of the State and nation. Russell H. Conwell presided, and opened the exercises by giving a brief sketch of Mr. Taylor’s early life, after which there followed other informal addresses by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes; Richard Frothingham, the historian; A. B. Alcott, the author; J. Boyle O’Reilly, the poet; Hon. J. B. D. Cogswell, [324] the president of the Massachusetts Senate; Curtis Guild, the author; Dr. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The essays published under the title of The Statesman occupy a peculiar place in literature. They have serious faults, especially the too obvious imitation of Bacon, but they nevertheless are original in their point of view, and their wisdom is the result of a different kind of observation from that which qualifies the bulk of essayists on human life. When writing as one of these Taylor is less removed from the commonplace, though many of his remarks are admirable. As a literary critic he seems unable to get beyond Wordsworth and the select circle of poets admired by the latter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In January 1838 Taylor gave his first three lectures, which were published in the same year. He gave frequent lectures with great success in different parts of the country, and one on ‘Madrigals’ which he delivered at Bristol in 1837 resulted in the formation of the Bristol Madrigal Society, which still flourishes. From 1829 to 1843 he was musical critic of the ‘Spectator.’ He died at his house, Gresham Cottage, Cornlands Road, Brentwood, Essex, on 12 March 1863, and was buried in the old dissenting burial-ground, King's Road, Brentwood. ”

“ Taylor, he has a richer and more glowing fancy; if his figures are less apt and striking, they are more elegant and symmetrical; if the harmonious dignity of his versification is less, its melodious sweetness is more; if he has less passion, he has more sensibility; if moral and physical grandeur are not so attractive to him, ideal and natural beauty are the only elements in which his life is endurable. We might pursue these contrasts to the end of our magazine; but if we have called the reader's attention to them, we have done enough.
From "Love and Solitude," by Mr. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was too feeble to walk that distance without rest, and he was unwilling to be carried in a sedan-chair because he feared the evil influence of what would have been—to him—perfectly innocent. So he made the journey on foot, helped by his son, who carried a stool. Every few rods the stool was placed and Mr. Taylor sat on it and rested. The attention of the Chinese, Christians and Confucianists alike, was attracted. Every little while some one would ask: “Why does not the old man ride?” “Because he will not make any one else work on the Sabbath day.” ”

“ Although Taylor was possessed of large resources, both official and private—amounting in all, so it was rumoured, to 7,000l. per annum—and never voluntarily paid a debt, he always hankered after better preferments.
Taylor spent much time at his family residence at Ashbourne. He became J.P. for Derbyshire on 6 Oct. 1761, and thenceforth was known as ‘the King of Ashbourne.’ Through life he maintained his friendship with Johnson. Johnson was at Ashbourne in 1737 and 1740, and in the thirteen years from 1767 to 1779 only thrice failed to visit Taylor. ”

“ 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. ”