JOHN TAYLOR, THE WATER POET. 
R bill to receive lOl. at Aleppo. The letter was directed to Mr. Ghap'i 
man, consul there at that time ; and the passage that cohceriied 
Coryate was this : Mr. Chapman, when you shall handle these letters^ 
I desire you to rec‘eive the bearer of them, Mr. Thomas Coryate, with 
courtsee, for you will find him a very honest poor wretch, ’’ &c. Thi^ 
expression troubled Coryate extremely, and therefore it was altered to 
his mind. He was very jealous of his reputation abroad ; for he gave 
out, that there were great expectances in England of the large accounts 
he should give of his travels at his return home. 
What became of the notes and observations he made in his long 
peregrinations, is unknown. The following only, which he sent to his 
friends in England, were printed in his absence : — Letters from As- 
mere, the court of the great mogul, to several persons of quality in 
England, concerning the emperor and his country of East India, in the 
title of which is oiir author’s picture, riding upon a elephant : A letter 
to his mother Gertrude, dated from Agra in East India, containing 
the speech that he delivered to the great mogul in the Persian lain 
guage : Certain observations from the mogul’s court, and East India* 
Travels to, and observations in, Constantinople, and other places-, in 
the way thither, and in his journey thence to Aleppo, Damascus, and 
Jerusalem : His oration, Purus Putus Coryatus,' (quintessence ©f 
Coryate ;) spoken extempore, when Mr. Rugg dubbed him a knight on 
the ruins of Troy, by the name of Thomas Coryate, the first English 
knight of Troy : Observations on Constantinople, abridged ; all 
these are to be found in the Pilgrimages of Sam. Purchas : Divers 
Latin and Greek epistles to learned men beyond the seas; some of * 
which are in his Crudities. — Among his persecutors was Taylor the 
Water-poet, who frequently endeavours to raise a laugh at his expense* 
To Coryate’s w»Orks may be added a copy of verses, in the Somersetshire 
dialect, printed in Guidott’s “Collection of Treatises on the Bath 
Waters,” 1725, 8vo. 
John Taylor, the Water Poet. 
This person, usually called the Water Poet, from his beluga water* 
man as well as a poet, and certainly more of the former than the lat* 
ter, was born in Gloucestershire about 1580. Wood says he was born 
in the city of Gloucester, and went to school there ; but he does not 
5eera to have learned more than his audience, as appears by some 
lines of hisi own. From this school he was brought to London, and 
bound apprentice to a waterman, whence he was either pressed or 
went voluntarily into the naval service, for he was at the taking of 
Cadiz, under the earl of Essex, in 1596, when only sixteen years old, 
and was afterwards in Germany, Bohemia, and Scotland, as may be 
collected from various passages in his works. At home he was many 
years collector, for the lieutenant of the Tower, of the wines which 
were his fee, from all ships which brought them up the Thames ; but 
was at last discharged, because he would not purchase the place at 
more than it was worth. 
He calls himself the “ King’s Water Poet,” and the “ Queen’s Wa- 
2 T 
