TAYLOR, Jeremy, a theologian of high reputation, was born at Cambridge, and was baptized on the 15th of August 1613. His father, a descendant of Dr Rowland Taylor who suffered martyrdom in the reign of Mary, followed the humble calling of a barber. Jeremy was educated at Perse’s free-school; and on the 18th of August 1626, being then thirteen years of age, he was entered at Caius College as a sizar, or poor scholar. He took the degree of A. B. in 1630-1, and that of A. M. in 1633. According to the common account, he was elected a fellow of his college, but this account seems to require confirmation. Before he attained the age of twenty-one, he was admitted to holy orders; and having soon afterwards been employed by a friend to supply his place at the lecture in St. Paul’s, his graceful person and elocution, together with the varied richness of his style and argument, speedily procured him friends and admirers. He was mentioned in such favourable terms to Laud, that he was requested to preach before the archbishop at Lambeth, and was highly commended for his performance. This powerful patron recommended him to a vacant fellowship in All Souls College, Oxford, and a great majority of the fellows voted for his admission; but as the warden refused his concurrence, no election took place, and the nomination thus devolved to the archbishop as visitor of the college. Taylor was appointed on the 14th of January 1636. It appears [7:21:125]from the college records that during the period of his continuing a fellow, he was not a regular resident. He became chaplain to the primate, and afterwards to the king; and, on the presentation of Juxon bishop of London, he was in March 1638 instituted to the rectory of Uppingham in Rutlandshire. Here he now fixed his residence; and on the 27th of March 1639, being then in the twenty-sixth year of his age, he married Phoebe Landisdale, or Langsdale, who bore him several sons and daughters.

The civil commotions speedily ensued; and in August 1642 he was called to Oxford to attend the king in his capacity of chaplain. On the 1st of November he was admit-ed by mandamus to the degree of D.D. He now exerted himself in sustaining the tottering cause of episcopacy, and published various works on the controversies of those unhappy times. Whatever might be the state of the argument between the contending parties, the enemies of episcopacy were stronger than its friends; and for several years Dr Taylor was exposed to many vicissitudes of fortune. He appears to have retired into Wales; and on the 4th of February 1644 he fell into the hands of the parliamentary troops, when they defeated Colonel Gerard before the castle of Cardigan. How long he was detained a prisoner, it is difficult to ascertain. In conjunction with William Nicholson afterwards bishop of Gloucester, and William Wyatt afterwards prebendary of Lincoln, he opened a school at Newton Hall in Carmarthenshire. In 1647 was published a little volume entitled “A new and easie Institution of Grammar,” which contains a Latin epistle by Wyatt, and an English epistle by Taylor.

Of the principles of toleration, the members of the church of England had a very faint and inadequate conception, till in their turn they had begun to feel the bitterness of persecution. Some of those who had been deprived of their benefices, began to perceive a glimpse of purer light; and if Dr Taylor had not been reduced to the condition of a wanderer, it is highly probable that he never would have prepared “A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying; shewing the Unreasonableness of prescribing to other Men’s Faith, and the Iniquity of persecuting differing Opinions.” Lessons of Christian meekness were not easily learned in the school of Laud; but the disposition of Taylor was naturally humane, and he had derived wisdom from experience. The maxims of forbearance which they were sufficiently disposed to inculcate in their season of adversity, they were too generally disposed to forget on the first return of prosperity; and the treatment of the non-conformists during the reign of Charles the Second, has affixed an indelible stigma on the churchmen of that disgraceful era of English as well as Scotish history. Let any man, whose heart is not hardened by incurable bigotry, peruse the life of the eminently pious and distinguished Richard Baxter, and he will very readily discover that the spirit of popish intolcrance has not always been confined to the popedom.

Dr Taylor’s Liberty of Prophesying, one of the most remarkable works which he produced, was printed in quarto in the year 1647. In 1650 he published “The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living,” and in the following year “The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying.” His first wife is supposed to have died before his retirement into Wales; and his second was Joanna Bridges, who possessed a competent estate at Mandinam. in the parish of Llanguedor and county of Carmarthen. Her mother’s family, we are informed, was unknown; but she was generally believed to be a natural daughter of Charles the First. She is said to have possessed a very fine person; and, both in countenance and disposition, to have displayed a striking resemblance to her unfortunate father. He must now have relinquished the occupation of a schoolmaster. During his residence in Wales, he was much indebted to the kindnessof Richard earl of Carbery, who resided at Golden Grove in the same county, and who retained him as his chaplain. The next important work which he published was “The Great Exemplar; or, the Life and Death of the Holy Jesus.” Lond. 1653, fol. The work speedily obtained an extensive popularity. His learned leisure was soon afterwards exposed to another interruption; and, for some reason which has not been fully discovered, he was imprisoned in Chepstow castle. He appears to have been in custody in the month of May 1654; but, from some of his own letters, we ascertain that he was released before the close of the ensuing year. According to the statement of Wood, he soon afterwards settled in London, and officiated in a small and private congregation. The accuracy of his statement has been called in question; but it is at least certain that about this period he occasionally officiated in the metropolis.

In 1654 he had published a Treatise against Transubstantiation; and in 1655 appeared “Unum necessarium; or, the Doctrine and Practice of Repentance.” Here he found occasion to discuss the doctrine of original sin, and in so Arminian a strain, that he incurred much censure, even from the members of his own church. In this difficult doctrine, we consider Jonathan Edwards a much safer guide than Jeremy Taylor. He endeavoured to defend his own opinions in two different tracts. About this period of his life he produced various other works, including a course of Sermons for the whole year. Several of his smaller tracts were collected in a volume entitled “A Collection of Polemical and Moral Discourses.” Lond. 1657, fol. About the beginning of the ensuing year, we find him a prisoner in the Tower, to which he had been committed in consequence of his bookseller having prefixed to his Collection of Offices a print of Christ in the attitude of prayer; for a recent act had declared such representations punishable by fine and imprisonment. His friend Evelyn, to whom he had many obligations, was instrumental in procuring his release, nor does he seem to have been long detained in custody. On the invitation of the ear] of Conway, he afterwards emigrated to the north of Ireland. He left London in June 1658, and proceeded to the county of Antrim, where he appears to have divided his residence between Lisburne and Portmore, about eight miles distant from that town. At Lisburne he is supposed to have had a small lectureship; and he occupied a house in the immediate neighbourhood of his patron’s mansion at Portmore. According to the tradition of his descendants, he frequently preached to a small congregation in the half-ruined church of Kilulta. His tranquillity suffered another interruption in 1659, when he was represented to the Irish council as a person disaffected to the existing government. A warrant was issued for bringing him to Dublin for examination, but it does not appear that he was subjected to any additional annoyance.

In the mean time, he devoted his learned leisure to the completion of a very remarkable work, published immediately after the restoration, under the title of “Ductor Dubitantium; or, the Rule of Conscience in all her general Measures.” Lond. 1660, fol. His great merit had now become too conspicuous to be disregarded; and on the 6th of August he was nominated to the bishopric of Down and Connor. He was soon afterwards elected vice-chancellor of the university of Dublin, and this office he retained till his death. On the 30th of April 1661 he was appointed administrator of the bishopric of Dromore, which he continued to hold with his other bishopric. In 1663 he published “A Dissuasive from Popery and some answers to it having been produced, he prepared a second part, which was not printed till after his death. He died at Lisburne on the 13th of August 1667, having only completed the fifty-fourth year of his age; and his remains were interred in the choir of the cathedral of Dromore. His disease was a fever, which proved fatal in ten days. His funeral ser [7:21:126] mon was preached by Dr Rust, his successor in that diocese. No son, by either marriage, survived him. His eldest son, a captain of horse, was killed in a duel with a brother-officer named Vane, who also died of his wounds. Three of his daughters, Phoebe, Mary, and Joanna, survived their father. The eldest died single; the second was married to Dr Francis Marsh, who became archbishop of Dublin; and the third to Edward Harrison, member of parliament for the borough of Lisburne. The bishop’s widow survived him many years, but neither the time nor the place of her death has been ascertained.

In his numerous works, Taylor has displayed a vigorous and fervid mind, supplied with ample stores of learning. His warm and excursive imagination has enabled him to diffuse over his writings, even on the most abstruse subjects, a very attractive and lively air. “The crowded, yet clear and luminous galaxies of imagery diffused through the works of Bishop Taylor,” are mentioned in glowing terms by Dr Parr. It must however be admitted that his warmth of imagination is sometimes more conspicuous than his sobriety of judgment. His style is distinguished by its vivacity, and is more fluent and unencumbered than that of his most eminent predecessors in English literature. His popularity continues unimpaired. An edition of his whole works, with a copious life of the author by Bishop Heber, was published at London in the year 1822 in 15 vols. 8vo. Of some of his practical treatises, the recent editions are very numerous; and this complete collection has twice been reprinted. (x.)

Taylor, Brook, was born at Edmonton, on the 28th of August 1685. He was the son of John Taylor, Esq. of Bifrons-house in Kent, by Olivia, daughter of Sir Nicholas Tempest, of Durham, Baronet. His grandfather, Nathaniel Taylor, was one of those puritans whom “Cromwell thought fit to elect by a letter, dated June 14th, 1653, to represent the county of Bedford in parliament.” The character of his father partook in no small degree of the austerity that had been transmitted to him in the line of his ancestors, and by the spirit of the times in which they lived; and to this cause may be ascribed the disaffection which sometimes subsisted between the father and even such a son as is the subject of this article. The old gentleman’s morose temper, however, yielded to the powers of music; and the most eminent professors of the art in that period were hospitably welcomed in his house. His son Brook was induced, by his natural genius, and by the disposition of his father, which he wished by all the means in his power to conciliate, to direct his particular attention to music; and he became in very early life a distinguished proficient in it. To music he added another accomplishment, in which he equally excelled, that of drawing and painting. His classical education was conducted at home under a private tutor; and his proficiency in the ordinary branches of the languages and the mathematics was so great, that he was deemed qualified for the university at the early age of fifteen.

In 1701 he was entered a fellow commoner of St John’s College, Cambridge. At that period mathematics engaged more particularly the attention of the university; and the examples of eminence in the learned world, derived from that branch of science, attracted the notice and roused the emulation of every youth possessed of talents and of application. In 1708 he wrote his treatise on the Centre of Oscillation, which was not published in the Philosophical Transactions till some years afterwards. In 1709, he took the degree of LL. B. In 1712, he was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society. During the interval between these two periods, he corresponded with Dr Keill on several of the most abstruse subjects of mathematical disquisition. Sir William Young informs us, that he had in his possession a letter, dated in 1712, addressed to Mr Machin, which contains at length a solution of Kepler’s problem, and explains the use to be derived from that solution. In this year he presented to the Royal Society three different papers: one on the Ascent of Water between two Glass Planes; a second, on the Centre of Oscillation; and a third, on the Motion of a stretched String. It appears from his correspondence with Keill, that in 1713 he presented a paper on his favourite subject of Music; but this is not preserved in the Transactions.

His distinguished proficiency in those branches of science which engaged the particular attention of the Royal Society at this period, and which embroiled them in contests with foreign academies, recommended him to the notice of its most illustrious members; and in 1714 he was elected to the office of secretary. In this year he took the degree of LL. D.; and during the same year he transmitted, in a letter to Sir Hans Sloane, an Account of some curious Experiments relative to Magnetism; which, however, was not delivered to the society till many years afterwards, when it was printed in the Transactions. His application to those studies to which his genius inclined was indefatigable; for we find that in 1715 he published in Latin his Methodus Incrementorum; a curious essay preserved in the Philosophical Transactions, entitled an Account of an Experiment for the Discovery of the Laws of Magnetic Attraction; and a treatise well known to mathematicians, and highly valued by the best judges, his New Principles of Linear Perspective. In the same year (such were his admirable talents, and so capable were they of being directed to various subjects), he conducted a controversial correspondence with the Count Raymond de Montmort, on the tenets of Malebranche; which occasioned his being particularly noticed in the eulogium pronounced by the French academy on the decease of that eminent metaphysician.

The new philosophy of Newton, as it was then called, engaged the attention of mathematicians and philosophers both at home and abroad. At Paris it was in high estimation; and the men of science in that city were desirous of obtaining a personal acquaintance with the learned secretary of the Royal Society, whose reputation was so generally acknowledged, and who had particularly distinguished himself in the Leibnitzian or German controversy, as we may denominate it, of that period. In consequence of many urgent invitations, he determined to visit his friends at Paris in the year 1716. He was received with every possible token of affection and respect. Besides the mathematicians, to whom he had always free access, he was here introduced to Lord Bolingbroke, the Count de Caylus, and Bishop Bossuet.

Early in 1717 he returned to London, and composed three treatises, which were presented to the Royal Society, and published in the thirtieth volume of the Transactions. About this time his intense application had to a considerable degree impaired his health; and he was under the necessity of repairing, for relaxation and relief to Aix-la-Chapelle. Having likewise a desire of directing his attention to subjects of moral and religious speculation, he resigned his office of secretary to the Royal Society in 1718. After his return to England in 1719, he applied to subjects of a very different kind from those that had employed the thoughts and labours of his more early life. Among his papers of this date, Sir William Young found detached parts of a Treatise on the Jewish Sacrifices, and a dissertation of considerable length on the Lawfulness of eating Blood.

Toward the end of the year 1720, Dr Taylor accepted the invitation of Lord Bolingbroke to spend some time at La Source, a country-seat near Orleans, which he held in right of his wife, the widow of the Marquis de Vilette, nephew of Madame de Maintenon. In the next year he returned to England, and published the last paper which appears with his name in the Philosophical Transactions, entitled an Experiment made to ascertain the Proportion of [7:21:127]Expansion of Liquor in the Thermometer, with regard to the degree of Heat.

In 1721 he married Miss Bridges of Wallington, in the county of Surrey, a young lady of good family, but of small fortune; and this marriage occasioned a rupture with his father, whose consent he had never obtained. The death of his wife in 1725, and that of an infant son, whom the parents regarded as the presage and pledge of reconciliation with the father, and who actually proved such, deeply affected his sensibility. During the two succeeding years he resided with his father at Bifrons, where “the musical parties, so agreeable to his taste and early proficiency, and the affectionate attentions of a numerous family welcoming an amiable brother, so long estranged by paternal resentment, not only soothed his sorrows, but ultimately engaged him to a scene of country retirement, and domesticated and fixed his habits of life.” In 1725, with the full approbation of his father and family, he married Sabetta, daughter of John Sawbridge, Esq. of Olantigh, in Kent. In 1729, on the death of his father, he succeeded to the family estate of Bifrons. In the following year he lost his wife in childbed. The daughter whose birth occasioned this melancholy event survived, and became the mother of Sir William Young, to whom we owe these notices of his grandfather.

In the interval that elapsed between the years 1721 and 1730, no production of Taylor appears in the Philosophical Transactions; nor in the course of that time did he publish any work. His biographer has found no traces of his learned labour, excepting a Treatise of Logarithms, which was committed to his friend Lord Paisley (afterward Aber-corne), in order to be prepared for the press, but which probably was never printed. His health was now much impaired; relaxation became necessary, and he was diverted by new connections from the habit of severe study, which had distinguished the early period of his life, and which had contributed to contract its duration. Happy in the social circle of domestic enjoyment, and devoting his attention to business or amusement as they occurred, his application and his literary emulation seem to have declined. He did not long survive the loss of his second wife; and his remaining days were days of increasing imbecility and sorrow. The essay entitled contemplatio Philosophica, published by Sir William Young in 1793, appears to have been written about this time, and probably with a view to abstract his mind from painful recollections and regret. It was the effort of a strong mind, and is a most remarkable example of the close logic of the mathematician applied to metaphysics. But the blow had sunk too deep for study to afford more than temporary relief. The very resource was hurtful, and intense study but accelerated the decline of his health. His friends offered every comfort; in particular Lord Bolingbroke pressed his consolation, and sought to call his mind from regret of domestic endearments to social friendship at Dawley. The attention and kindness of his friends, however, could not ward off the approaches of dissolution. Having survived his second wife little more than a year, he died of a decline in the forty-sixth year of his age, December the 29th, 1731, and was buried in the churchyard of St Ann’s, Soho.

Taylor, John, a very learned philologer and civilian, was a native of Shrewsbury, and was baptized on the 22d of June 1704. His father followed the useful trade of a barber, and the son was destined for the same occupation; but such was his early and unconquerable love of books, that his father was in utter despair of ever making Jack a cunning shaver, when his strong predilection for literature recommended him to the patronage of a gentleman of fortune, Edward Owen, of Condover, Esq., to whom he was chiefly indebted for the advantages of an academical education. He was sent to St John’s College, Cambridge; and is supposed to have been assisted by one of the exhibitions founded in that college for the pupils of Shrewsbury school. He took the degree of A. B. in 1724, and that of A. M. in 1728. At the university he speedily distinguished himself by his classical attainments, and especially by his masterly knowledge of the Greek language. He became a fellow and tutor of his college, and was thus placed in a situation of easy competence, extremely favourable to his pursuits. His academical establishment had been rendered more important by an irreconcilable difference with Mr Owen, whose friendship he had forfeited by refusing to drink a Jacobite toast on his bare knees. He was a Tory without being a Jacobite. The Condover family then enjoyed great patronage in the church; and the dissolution of this connection might perhaps occasion a change in Taylor’s views.

On the 30th of January 1730 he was appointed to deliver the Latin oration then annually pronounced in St Mary’s before the university; and at the ensuing commencement, in the month of July, he was selected to recite the music speech. He was a frequent writer of familiar verses; and several of his juvenile poems have been printed by Mr Nichols.^[1. Two Music Speeches at Cambridge, spoken at Public Commencements in the years 1714 and 1730, by Roger Long, Μ. A. of Trinity College, and John Taylor, Μ. A. of St John’s. To which are added Dr Taylor’s Latin Speech at St Mary’s, on the 30th of January 1730; several of his juvenile Poems; some minor Essays in prose; and Specimens of his Epistolary Correspondence. To the whole are prefixed memoirs of Dr Taylor and Dr Long. Lond. 1819, 8vo. ] In 1731 he undertook to assist Dr Jortin as a contributor to the “Miscellaneous Observations on Authors, ancient and modern.” For this publication he wrote several articles, signed cantabrigiensis, and one without a signature, entitled “Animadversiones in Luciani Asinum.” In 1732 he was appointed librarian, and afterwards registrar, of the university. The office of librarian he only retained for a short time. He first distinguished himself among the scholars of the age by the publication of “Lysiae Orationes et Fragmenta, Graece et Latine.” Lond. 1739, 4to. To his own illustrations he added the conjectures of his friend Jeremiah Markland, an excellent Grecian. This elegant publication was followed by an octavo edition, printed at Cambridge in 1740, and the editor’s notes are there given in an abridged form.

Taylor had obtained one of the two law-fellowships in his college; and, according to the academic phraseology, he proceeded in the law-line, and took the degree of LL. D. in the year 1741. On this occasion he wrote an elaborate dissertation, which was soon afterwards published under the title of“Commentarius ad L. Decemviralem de inope Debitore in partis dissecando.” Cantab. 1742, 4to. In the interpretation of this law, he has adopted the opinion of Bynkershoek, that the creditors were entitled to divide, not the body, but the goods of the insolvent debtor; but this opinion, which has likewise been maintained by other civilians, can neither be reconciled with the obvious meaning of the words, nor with the ancient mode of understanding them. On the 15th of February 1741-2, Dr Taylor was admitted an advocate at Doctors Commons. It does not appear that he ever engaged in the practice of the bar; but a design was about this time entertained of initiating him in public business, as under-secretary of state to Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville. It was fortunate for the cause of learning that he was not thus diverted from his more genial pursuits; and, after a short interval, he exhibited a new proof of his profound knowledge of classical antiquity, by the publication of his “Marmor Sandvicense, cum commentario et notis.” Cantab. 1743, 4to. The very ancient marble, on which he supplies so learned a commen [7:21:128]tary, Lord Sandwich had brought from Athens in the year 1739.

About the beginning of the year 1744, Bishop Thomas appointed Dr Taylor chancellor of the diocese of Lincoln. He was now occupied in preparing a most elaborate edition of Demosthenes and other Attic orators. As a specimen, he had already published the oration of Demosthenes against Midias, and that of Lycurgus against Leocrates. Cantab. 1743, 8vo. After much laborious preparation, he at length published, not the first, but the third volume of his projected edition of Demosthenes, Aeschines, Dinarchus, and Demades: “ Δ ημοσθένους, A ἰσχίνου, Δεινάgχου, xαὶ Δ ημάδου τà σ ωζομένα. Graece et Latine.” Cantab. 1748, 4to. The second volume made its appearance in 1757. It contains the controversial orations of Demosthenes and Aeschines, together with the epistles ascribed to the latter. The third volume includes ten orations of Demosthenes. His plan extended to five volumes, but he left it in this incomplete state. Two of his friends, Dr Jurin and Mr Markland, supplied him with some annotations. This, like all his other works, is splendidly printed. It was one defect of his edition, that he had not bestowed sufficient care in purifying the text as it had been left by Wolfius. Reiske, a critic not remarkable for his gentleness or candour, considers his illustrations of Attic antiquities as too copious and too ostentatious; and he urges a further objection, that he has not to the full extent availed himself of the assistance to be derived from ancient grammarians, rhetoricians, and rhetorical lexicoraphers. Of his Latinity he speaks in no favourable terms. “Dictio Taylori Latina haud placet: obscura, affectata, putida est. Sed paucos novi Anglos, qui Latine scribere didicissent. Latinae linguae neglectus illi genti communis est. Et tamen Taylor, si ad alios Anglos spectetur, adhuc bene scribit. Melius si scisset Latine, non vituperasset Wolflum.” After the death of Taylor, his papers relating to the orators were by Dr Askew transmitted to Reiske, who was then occupied with his edition of the Oratores Graeci, and who appears to have made a too indiscriminate use of the materials thus supplied. The reputation of his predecessor he treats with little tenderness or delicacy. It is however admitted by more impartial judges that Taylor possessed many eminent qualifications for the difficult task which he had undertaken. To an intimate knowledge of the Greek language he added a familiar acquaintance with Greek antiquities; and his skill in ancient jurisprudence gave him a great advantage over most of those who have laboured in the same department.^[2. Taylor’s preface and annotations are reprinted in Dobson’s Oratores Attici, et, quos sic vocant, Sophistae. Lond. 1828, 16 tom. 8vo. “Neque vero,” says Schümann, “intelligi hae orationes et explicari possunt sine accuratiore juris Attici cognitione, quam nostrorum grammaticoum plerique nimis a professione sua alienam putant.” See the preface to “Isaei Orationes XI. cum aliquot deperditarum Fragmentis. Recognovit, annotationem criticam et commentarios adjecit Georg. Frid. Schümann.” Gryphiswaldae:, 1831, 8vo. ]

Dr Taylor having long continued a layman, was at length induced to take orders by the prospect of a speedy vacancy in a valuable college-living. The rectory of Lawford in Essex became vacant in April 1751; and being then in the forty-seventh year of his age, he preferred his claim, which was not admitted without considerable doubt and hesitation. As he held a lay fellowship, and had thus been exempted from all ecclesiastical duties in the college and university, such a claim appears to have been unprecedented, but he did not encounter any effectual opposition. He became archdeacon of Buckingham in 1753, and canon residentiary of St Paul’s in July 1757. During the latter year he was elected prolocutor of the lower house of convocation. He was also appointed commissary of Lincoln and of Stowe. Although he was so late in commencing his ecclesiastical career, he is said to have been eminent as a preacher. He printed two sermons; one preached at B⅛hop-Stortford School-Feast, 26th Aug. 1749, and the other before the House of Commons on the fast-day, 11th Feb. 1757. In 1822 they were both reprinted at the suggestion of Dr Parr, who has added notes to the first For his preferments he was chiefly indebted to Lord Granville, who was a very competent judge of literary merit, and who had intrusted him with superintending the education of his two grandsons, Thomas viscount Weymouth, afterwards marquis of Bath, and Henry Frederick Thynne, afterwards Lord Carteret. When the earl recommended him for the canonry, “the king said that he had never heard of Dr Taylor; and that he understood it was a good piece of preferment, and was usually given to a scholar of note. The artful statesman took the hint, and said, the doctor’s fame was celebrated all over Germany. There was no occasion to say more.” He resigned the office of registrar in 1758, and quitted Cambridge to reside in London. When he entered into orders, he necessarily ceased to be an advocate; but, by the unanimous consent of the civilians, he usually dined four times every term at Doctors Commons.

Although he ceased to be an advocate, he did not cease to be a lawyer; and the next considerable work which he produced bears the title of “Elements of the Civil Law.” Camb. 1755, 4to. This work, which originated from a suggestion of his noble patron, exhibits great merits and no small defects. It contains very ample stores of ancient literature, as well as ancient jurisprudence, and many of the author’s speculations are ingenious and able. But his range of legal topics is not sufficiently extensive; and his mode of discussion being very desultory and digressive, his materials, often highly valuable, are not always disposed to the best advantage. One of his speculations exposed him to the animadversion of an outrageous controversialist. “It is not true,” he had taken occasion to remark, “that the primitive Christians held their assemblies in the night time, to avoid the interruptions of the civil power; but the converse of that proposition is true in the utmost latitude, viz. that they met with molestations from that quarter, because their assemblies were nocturnal.”^[3. Taylor’s Elements of the Civil Law, p. 579. ] This did not coincide with the opinion of Bishop Warburton, who attacked him in that style of unmeasured abuse for which he was so eminently distinguished.^[4. Warburton’s Divine Legation of Moses, vol. iii. p. xxxv. ] His parasite Dr Hurd had likewise a ready sneer to bestow upon the civilian;^[5. Hurd’s Works, vol. viii. p. 282. Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, p. 223. ] and in the private correspondence of these two prelates, who flattered each other and abused almost all the rest of mankind, he is treated as a learned dunce.^[6. Letters from a late eminent Prelate to one of his Friends, p. 225. ] Dr Taylor, who was remarkable for his good humour, had no inclination to engage in controversy with such an antagonist as the bishop of Gloucester.

During the last ten years of his life, he seems to have experienced the usual effects of a large participation in the emoluments of the church. His career was no longer marked by a succession of elaborate publications, but he kept his equipage, and lived like a prosperous gentleman. He was kind and liberal in his disposition; and although he enjoyed a very ample income, he did not accumulate much wealth. Having only attained the sixty-sixth year of his age, he died, very generally beloved and lamented, at his residentiary house, on the 4th of April 1766. His remains were deposited in one of the vaults of St Paul’s, nearly under the litany-desk. To the school where he had been educated he bequeathed his large and valuable library, together with the residue of his fortune, for the maintenance of an exhibitioner at St John’s College. He however reserved to his friend Dr Askew all his MSS. and such of his [7:21:129]printed books as contained his marginal annotations. Of this clause the book-collecting physician is said to have taken a very illiberal advantage, and to have enforced it with the utmost rigour, so as to include a very large number of books which the testator had intended to form a part of his legacy to Shrewsbury school. (x.)