T A V 



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T A Y 



'whether 1 - tin- duties, or dangers, or In 



nmn, or tli- ower, nnd justice nl' the Most High : 



whether hi' exhorts or instructs liis brethren, or offers up 

 his ittpplicaiions in their behalf to the common Kiillu-r of 

 all. Ilia conn-plums nnd his expresriont belong to the 

 litftii-st and nio-l sacred description of poetry, of which they 

 only wiiut what they cannot be said to need, the name and 

 the" metrical arrangement.' 'Hfber, Life mi<l H'urks of 

 Jrrrtnti Taylor. 15 vols., 1820-22.) 



TAYLOR, JOHN, best known by the title, which he 

 - 1. 1 have given to himself, of Thf ll'n'fr-l'ix-t -The 

 Kind's Majesty's Water-Poet' 1 , was born in the city of 

 Gloucester in the year 13HO. His education was limited, 

 for he himself informs us that he was ' travelled' in his 

 Aci-uleiu-e,' and could iret no farther. He came to Lon- 

 don, and was bound apprentice to a waterman, an occu- 

 pation from which he derived his title of \\ 'ater-1'oet,' 

 and which afforded him the means of subsistence during 

 a great part of his life. He had however for fifteen or six- 

 teen years some situation in the Tower of London ; and he 

 afterwards kept n public-house in Phoenix-Alley, Long 

 Acre. Being an enthusiastic royalist, when Charles 1. 

 was beheaded he hung up the sign of the Mourning Crown, 

 which however he was compelled to take down, and he 

 then supplied its place by a portrait of himself, with the 

 following couplet under it : 



.' There'* many a kind's hr.nl Imnij'tl up for a sl~n. 

 And many a taint'* head tuo: thoti why Dot miuc :' 



Taylor was not satisfied with the distinction which his 

 literary productions procured for him : he was fond of 

 fixing public attention by other extraordinary perform- 

 ance. He once undertook to sail from London to Ro- 

 chester in a boat made of paper, b\it the water found its 

 way into his l>oat before he reached his destination, and 

 he had some difficulty to pet safe ashore. A journey 

 which he performed by land is described in one of his 

 tracts, entitled 'The Pennyless Pilgrimage, or the Money- 

 less Penunbulation of John Taylor, alias the King's Ma- 

 jesty's \Vater-Poet; how he travelled on foot from London 

 to Edinburgh in Scotland, not carrying any money to or 

 fro. neither begsring, borrowing, or asking meat, drink, or 

 lodging.' He left the Bell Inn that's extra Alders^ate' 

 on the 14th of July, 1018. A full account of this journey, 

 abstracted from Taylor's pamphlet, is given in the Penny 

 Magazine,' Nos. 022 and 623. He was attended by a 

 servant with a horse, and they had a small stock of pro- 

 visions and provender, which more than once relieved 

 them when the occasional inhospitality which they met 

 with had reduced them to the extremity of hunger. His 

 course was through St. Albans, Stony Stratford, Coventry, 

 Liehtield, Newcastle-under-Lyne, Manchester, Preston, 

 istcr, Penrith, Carlisle, Kdinbursih, Dunfermline, 

 Stirling, Perth; and being then in the Highlands, he had 

 an opportunity of teeing, at the Brae o' Mar.' one of those 

 u'reat deer-hunts which were then frequent in that part of 

 S -utland, and of which he gives in his pamphlet an enter- 

 taining and picturesque description. The whole journey 

 till his return to London occupied about three months. 

 But a sort of voyage which he afterwards performed was 

 apparently not less difficult. He published, us usual, an 

 account, of it himself, 'John Taylors last Voyage and Ad- 

 venture, performed from the 20th of July last, 1041, to 

 the 10th of September following ; in which time he | 

 with a sculler's boat from the citie of London to the cities 

 and townes of Oxford, Gloucester, Shrewsbury, Bristol. 

 Bathe, Monmouth, and Hereford.' From this title it might 

 be supposed that he went all the way by water, i 

 which, seeing the courses of the rivers, and the want of 

 canals in those days, was an obvious impossibility : but 

 the fact is, that when a river cea-ed to be navigable, or 

 ran in a wrong direction, he shipped his boat and himself 

 in a wain or waggon, and voyaged overland till he came 

 to another river which suited his purpose: still a irreat 

 part of the voyage was performed by water, and thus, to 

 use his own words, 'in lesse than twenty da\s" labour, 

 1200 miles were parsed to and fro, in most' hard, difficult, 

 and many dangerous pu-siycs ' 



Taylor died in 1051, in his 7~>lh Mar, and was buried in 

 the church-yard of Covent-Oarden, London. 



His publications, which amount to upwards of eiirhty, 

 *r* some in prose, some in vere, and rr.any both in 

 .'! verse. A literary productions they are of little or no 

 value, the vere mere doggrel, and the prose such as might 



be expected from a writer not without observation. I 



no great power of mind, and almost entirely n 



Still they are by no means without their value. Nearly all 



of them beinir short occasional productions a'i 



the circumstances in which he was plae, 



many curious descriptions, as well as intci, 



of the opinions and manners and general .- .. . icly 



of the times in which he lived. Sir Kirerton Bruises, in 



1 Vnsura Litteraria,' has given a full li-t . 

 writing, and a tolerably copious one is also given in V. 

 Bibliothec*. Britannica.' 



Baker's liinyriijiltiu Dramnlini, by Krd and Joii' 

 which work he has obtained a place in conscquci] 

 having written a pageant, 'Triumphs of Fame and II.,- 

 nour,' -it.'.. li::u. 



TAYLOR. SILAS, otherwise called Domville, or IVOm- 

 ville, by Antony Wood, was the sun of Svlvanus Taylor, 

 one of the commissioners during the civil war- 

 in^ those of the clergy called scandalous and insufl 

 ministers.' Silas Taylor was born at Harley near Much- 

 Wenlock, in Shropshire, July 10, 1024, and after ! 

 educated at Shrewsbury and Westminster school 

 a commoner of New Inn Hall at Oxford in Kill. II 

 taken thence by his father to join the parliamentary arnn, 

 in which he had a captain's commission. After the war 

 he was appointed by the interest of his fall '-ator 



of the royalists in Herefordshire, in discharge of which 

 office he conducted himself with so much modeiah 

 to conciliate the kinir's party. Part of the bishop's palace 

 at Hereford fell to his own share in the general spoliation, 

 and he acquired considerable wealth, all of which he was 

 compelled to restore at the Restoration. 



On that event he was treated by the royalists with : 

 lenity, and appointed commissary of ammunition. Si 

 Dunkirk, and about 1G65 made keeper of the king's stores 

 and storehouses for shipping at Harwich. lie died .No- 

 vember 4, 1078. and was buried at Harwich. Taylor was 

 much interested in the antiquities of bis country, and was 

 enabled in the confusion of the civil ware to ransack (he- 

 libraries of Hereford and "Worcester cathedrals, and in the. 

 course of these resi arches is said to have discovere i 

 original charter in which King Kdirar asserts his claim to 

 the sovereignty of the seas, which is printed in Sc' 

 ' Mare Clausum,' lib. ii. He left materials lor a ].-. 

 of Herefordshire, which afterwards came into the h 

 of Sir Edward Harley of Bntmpton Brian in that county. 

 To this collection belong Nos. 4()10, 4174. <i7'ji;. 07111;. 

 C856, and G8C8 of the Harlcian MSS., containing pail of 

 a ircneral history with notes and special topographical 

 ::ition under the several parishes, c\liacts from 

 'Domesday,' Leland, tec. From these papers Mr. 'Wil- 

 liam Brome, a subsequent collector tor the same county, 

 is said to have borrowed largely. flou;;! '"'';/" 



HO/AS, 'Herefordshire.') In tl 



MSS. is a paper of Taylor's on the making of cider. 

 ' 



(Ayscough's Ciitiiltixiir, 'Tail lor.*) 



His published woiks are, 'The History of (iavelKiud 

 with some observation:, and remarks upon many s) - 



occurrences of British and Kn^lish histmv. T,'i t 



added a shoit hislon -of William the < 'oni|iieror, written 

 in Latin by an anonymous author in the time of Henry 1.,' 

 London. l'W;;t. 4lo. ' 



A Hisloiy of Harwich was published from his pajn 

 Samuel Da'le, in 1~JC, and another edition, or the same 

 with another title page, London, 17-12. 



Wood (Athfii. i LI that Taylor wrote many 



pamphlets before the Restoration, but without his name ; 

 that he \v:is a '.rood classical scholar and mathematician, 

 and possessed of much general information: th.it In 

 an < vr'Icnt musician, and that he compo-' 

 anthems, anil edited ' Court Ayres,' &C., It Mitcd 



bv John I'lavluid. 



'TAYLOR, BROOK; TAYLORS THKORFM. In 

 rctcning all mailers conncete<l with iilirehiaical devel<ip- 

 menl to TVYI.OK'S TIIKORKM, we were partly moved by 

 the idea that so little was known of the life of the dis"- 

 co\crcrof that, theorem, that the additional space required 

 by our plan would not a]iiuiir more than was due 10 the 

 eelchritv of the subject. We timl oursches however \ cry 

 much deceived in two point!., since both the hist, 



-i-id that of his theorem, are to be, and 

 ran be, reccnered from the neirlect into which they have 

 fallen, at least in this country. 



