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gentlest and most attractive graces of the Christian character, and his name is inseparably associated with our most exalted ideas of moral purity and self-denying piety.

Of the numerous divines who in distant | or more recent times have enriched the theological literature of England, there is none to whom we can assign a more distinguished It is much to be regretted that the meposition, than to the preacher-poet, Bishop Jeremy Taylor. He has been called-and morials which remain to us of a life so full of not improperly-the Chrysostom of the interesting and remarkable incidents as that English Church. In richness of expression, of Taylor, should be so extremely scanty. In fertility of invention, and copiousness of il- recent years he has not wanted indeed for able lustration, he is confessedly unrivalled by biographers, but their sources of information any sacred orator of any age or country. appear to have been very limited. "The His mellifluous periods charm the ear and life of a student," observes Bishop Heber, please the taste, whilst they minister to the "is passed within a narrow circle, and of Above all, it is upon the men whose writings are most widely purposes of piety. record that he adorned the faith he preached, read and admired, the personal history is by the practice of his life, no less than by often enveloped in the deepest obscurity." the persuasive eloquence of his lips. He And thus in the absence of authenticated passed unscathed through many trials, and information, the biographers of Taylor, like whilst drinking deep of the bitter waters of those of Shakspeare, are frequently comaffliction, he afforded his weaker brethrenpelled to resort to conjecture or surmise, and an encouraging example of humility and patience. In the darkest hours of his earthly pilgrimage, his sweetness of disposition never forsook him. Though his bark was tossed upon a troubled sea, he waited with confidence and resignation for the issue of the voyage. In the shade of adversity, as well as in the sunshine of prosperity, he found ample opportunities for the display of the VOL. XXIII. NO. IV.

to fill up with invention and suggestions the imperfect outline which has been transmitted to posterity by his contemporaries. Although this course is not the most satisfactory one, it will be necessary for us to adopt it whilst sketching, as we propose as briefly as possible to do, the career of the most accomplished of English pulpit orators.

At the beginning of the 17th century,

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Nathaniel, the father of Jeremy Taylor, was settled in the town of Cambridge, where he carried on the business of a barber. He had eleven children, of whom Jeremy, baptized in the year 1613, (for there is no certain record of the time of his birth), was the third. Though engaged in a comparatively humble occupation, he was a man of reasonable learning, being able, as we are informed, to instruct his children in grammar and the mathematics. That he occupied a position of some respectability in the town of Cambridge, is also shown by his having been churchwarden of the parish of the Holy Trinity, in the year 1621. It must also be borne in mind that the trade of a barbersurgeon was, in those days, one of considerable importance, as, in addition to shaving. and hair-dressing, he was expected to perform all the ordinary surgical operations. It should be likewise mentioned that on the score of family, Nathaniel Taylor had some claim to consideration from his fellow-townsmen. He was the lineal descendant of an illustrious victim of the Marian persecution, -the revered and learned Rowland Taylor, chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer. His ancestors had also long possessed a small estate in Gloucestershire, and it is reasonable to suppose that these circumstances must have added to his consequence, and raised him rather above the sphere of a provincial

tradesman.

widely different, and the parts they were
called on to play in the politics of the period
completely opposite, it is impossible not to
see that in genius and disposition there were
many points of resemblance between them.
Both of them, also, were distinguished at this
period for their personal beauty. The great-
est intellects of the age were enshrined in
temples of corresponding comeliness. Of
Milton's youthful appearance, in his days of
studentship, a characteristic sketch has been
drawn by our greatest modern poet, which
is worthy of quotation :—

"Yea, our blind Poet, who, in his later day,
Stood almost single; uttering odious truth--
Darkness before, and danger's voice behind,
Soul awful-if the earth has ever lodged
An awful soul-I seem'd to see him here
Familiarly, and in his scholar's dress
Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth—
A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks,
Angelical, keen eye, courageous look,
And conscious step of purity and pride."*

And in like manner it is said that Taylor's florid and youthful beauty, his sweet and pleasant air, his grave and graceful presence-entranced the beholder, and seemed to give an outward indication of intellectual pre-eminence. It may also be inferred that Taylor, like Milton, frequently sighed over the scholastic jargon then taught in the universities, and longed to inhale a freer and healthier atmosphere. For "the asinine feast of sow-thistles and brambles," the future author of the Ductor Dubitantium must have had as profound a contempt as the author of Paradise Lost. And it requires no great effort of the imagination to picture these two illustrious members of the intellectual aristocracy of the nation comparing together, at such a time and place, their notions of the beautiful and true, and stimulating each other to more heroic exertions.

His son Jeremy seems to have been sent to school at a very early age, for he attended a free-school in Cambridge in the year 1616, at which time, if he were baptized in the year of his birth, he could have been only three years old. His aptness for learning, quickness, and docility soon attracted attention, and at the age of fifteen, (or according to another authority thirteen,) he was removed to the university, and his name was entered as a "poor scholar," or sizar of Caius College. Tradition has preserved no Having taken his degree of Master of anecdote of his boyhood, nor is anything reached the age of twenty-one, and it was Arts, Taylor was ordained before he had definitely known of his college career. But not his lot to remain long in obscurity. By it is worthy of remark, that only one year before he entered the university, a stripling a happy accident he was solicited to take the of still greater promise, and destined to ac-place of a college friend, who had been apcomplish even higher things, had become an pointed to preach at St. Paul's Cathedral, inmate of a neighboring college. This was The opportunity for distinction was not lost and was either unable or unwilling to attend. no other than John Milton; and it is fair to imagine that the two youths must have upon the young divine. His eloquent serbeen occasionally thrown into each other's mons and graceful elocution won the enthusiastic admiration of his auditors, and prosociety, and that they found, in common sympathies and congenial studies, a bond of cured him an introduction to Archbishop intimacy. Although the paths which they Laud. His friend Bishop Rust, (his sucwere destined to tread in after life were

* Wordsworth, “The Prelude.”

cessor in the diocess of Dromore), who | furious career. The impeachment of Laud, preached his funeral sermon, and introduced in 1640, had excited Taylor's eloquent indigtherein a brief sketch of his career, observes nation; and when the royal standard was that his personal beauty and sublime and raised at Nottingham, on the 22d of August, raised discourses caused his hearers "to take 1642,* it is supposed that he almost immehim for some young angel, newly descended diately left his parsonage, and joined the from the visions of glory!" Soon after his army in his capacity of a royal chaplain. first sermon at St. Paul's, he was summoned Very shortly afterwards his living was seto Lambeth, to preach before the Arch- questered, under the authority of a parliabishop. His discourse, upon that occasion, mentary resolution which decreed the foraccording to Rust, "was beyond exception, feiture of the livings of the loyal clergy. A and beyond imitation: yet the wise prelate puritan preacher was placed at Uppingham thought him too young; but the great youth in his stead, who, if the " Mercurius Aulicus" humbly begged his grace to pardon that (a royalist news-letter) can be relied on, was fault, and promised, if he lived, he would a curious specimen of the round-head divines mend it." It was, however, prudently re- of that period. The following is one of the solved by Laud that "such mighty parts anecdotes of this meek successor of the acshould be afforded better opportunities of complished Taylor, contained in the abovestudy and improvement, than a course of mentioned newspaper;— constant preaching would allow of." He foresaw the perils to which the excitement and applause of crowded congregations might expose the youthful orator; and he accordingly thought it better to send him to Oxford, where he might pursue his studies in undisturbed seclusion. With characteristic liberality, he placed him in his own college of All Souls, where he soon obtained a fellowship and, after the lapse of about two years, presented him to the rectory of Uppingham, in Rutlandshire.

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The liberality of "my lord of Canterbury" to Taylor did not stop here. Soon after promoting him to the rectory of Uppingham, "he preferred him," says Rust, "to be chaplain to King Charles the Martyr, of blessed and immortal memory." Being now comfortably settled in the world, with every prospect of future honors and happiness, the prosperous divine resolved on matrimony. Of the lady of his choice, nothing is known, except that she bore the musical maiden name of Phoebe Langdale. On the 27th of May, 1639, the marriage was celebrated in the parish-church of Uppingham, the gifted bridegroom being then in the 26th year of his age. But however cheering his prospects at this moment, Taylor's domestic felicity was not of long duration. Within three years his wife bore him three children, the youngest of whom died in May, 1642, and the mother soon followed her darling to the tomb.

The desolation of the pastor's home was but the beginning of his afflictions. The storm of political contention, which was destined to end in civil war, and to mar the fortunes of so many distinguished men, had begun its

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"Monday, May 6.-Now, if you would see what heavenly men these lecturers are, be pleased to take notice, that at Uppingham in Rutlandshire, the members have placed one Isaac Massey to teach the people, (for the true pastor, Dr. Jeremy Taylor, for his learning and loyalty is driven thence, his house plundered, his estate seized, and his family driven out of doors.) This Massey, coming lately into a house of the town, used these words, This town of Uppingham loves Popery, and we would reform it, but they will not," (and without any further coherence, said ;) but I say, whosoever says there is any king in England besides the Parliament at Westminister, I'll make him for ever speaking more.' The master of the house replied, I say there is a king in England besides the Parliament in Westminster;' whereupon Massey with his cudgel, broke the gentleman's head. Whoever doubts that Mr. Massey is injured by these relations, may satisfy themselves by inquiring of the inhabitants of Uppingham parish."†

During the hottest period of the civil war, Taylor is supposed to have followed the royal army in all its perilous marches. He is said to have been a spectator of the decisive battle of Newbury, and to have accompanied the discomfited cavaliers in their retreat from that memorable field. In 1644 he was with the royal forces in Wales, and was taken prisoner by the parliamentary army during the siege of Cardigan Castle. It is impossible, however, to follow his movements accurately at this period of his life. After his release

Or, according to Clarendon, on August 25th. "Bishop Jeremy Taylor; a Biography." By the Rev. A. Willmott, 1847.

from imprisonment, he left the army, and | Prophesying.
thenceforth took up his residence in Wales,
where he was fortunate enough to find a
quiet retreat amid the turmoils of civil
strife.

In this treatise he vindicated

the principles of religious freedom upon their broadest basis; so much so that it has been characterized as the "first distinct and avowed defence of toleration which had been ventured on in England, perhaps in Christendom." Its spirit is beautifully represented in the noble apologue with which it concludes, and which its author professes to cot-have taken from the "Jews' books," wherein the patriarch Abraham is rebuked by the Lord of Hosts for denying to an unbelieving wayfarer the rites of hospitality. Although written "in poverty and tribulation, without books, or leisure to consult them," in style and matter it is unsurpassed by any other production of its author. By Coleridge, the greatest critic of modern times, this treatise was regarded with almost extravagant admiration. "He saw in it all the confluent powers of the author, swelling the majestic stream of genius, as it rolled onward in its diversified and winding course." No one, we believe, can read this great work, or any considerable portion of it, without feeling that the writer was far in advance of his age; and that the object which he had in view, and which is declared upon the title-page to be the demonstration of "the Unreasonableness of prescribing to other Men's Faith, and the Iniquity of Persecuting Differing Opinions," as far as argument is concerned, was most satisfactorily attained.

At this period of his life, under the presstates of poverty and adversity, he embraced the profession of a schoolmaster. Tradition states that he instructed his scholars sometimes in one, and sometimes in another tage, in the village of Llanfihangel, in which he had taken up his abode. But it has been ascertained that he had two assistants, (who were compelled like himself to labor in this way for their subsistence), namely, William Nicholson, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, and William Wyatt, who became a prebendary of Lincoln;-a circumstance which would seem to imply that the work of instruction, whatever might be the station or degree of the scholars, was carried on in a systematic manner, and on an extensive scale. In conjunction with Wyatt, he published in 1647 a Grammar of the Latin language; and the biographer is thus enabled to trace another point of resemblance in the lives of Milton and Taylor, since both of these great men not only adopted for a short period the profession of the schoolmaster, but also both endeavored by the compilation of grammars to smooth the way for the youthful learner, and to leave behind them permanent memorials of the task to which they had temporarily dedicated their lofty intellects.

In the dedication to this celebrated production, a brief but beautiful allusion is made by Taylor to his personal history, which the biographer cannot pass over without notice, although some of the circumstances to which

*By "Prophesying," Taylor meant, in the language of the period, preaching or expounding.

During his residence in Wales, Taylor contracted a second marriage. The name of the lady with whom, in this darker period of his life, he was induced to enter into the bonds of wedlock, was Joanna Bridges, who is reputed to have been a natural child of King Charles I. It would appear that this was a very advantageous match for the im- When Abraham sat at his tent door, according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espoverished divine. In addition to the enpied an old man, stooping and leaning on his staff, dowments of a handsome person and agree-weary with age and travail, coming towards him, able manners, the lady is said to have been who was an hundred years of age. He received possessed of a good estate in the north-him most kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, eastern part of Carmarthenshire. But, like most of the royalists' possessions, it is proba-n ble that the property had become much reduced and encumbered by fines and other exactions, and was, therefore, insufficient in amount to relieve Taylor at once from the duties of school-keeping. Of his engagements and way of life, however, at this epoch, nothing again is precisely known; but it is certain that his pen was not idle in his retirement, for in the same year in which his Grammar was given to the world, he published his great work on the Liberty of

caused him to sit down; but observing that the old
man eat, and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing
on his meat, he asked him why he did not worship
the God of Heaven. The old man told him, that he
worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged no
other God. At which answer, Abraham grew so
zealously angry, that he thrust the old man out of
his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the
night, and an unguarded condition. When the old
man was gone, God called to Abraham, and asked
him where the stranger was? He replied, I thrust
him away because he did not worship thee.' God
answered him, I have suffered him these hundred
thou endure him one night?""
years, although he dishonored me; and couldst not

Willmott's Biography.

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