TAYLOR, William, the son of an eminent merchant at Norwich, was born in 1765. After spending a youth of more than ordinary promise, he went to the continent, where his talent for languages was stimulated, and where he drank as deeply as his nature would permit of at the various fountains, both deep and shallow, of German literature. Returning to Norwich, his admiring parents and friends thought him a prodigy of accomplishments, and chalked out for him a distinguished career in literature. To add to his other virtues he resolved to cultivate the graces of oratory, and enrolled himself member of a democratic club while the French Revolution was at its height. His attention to the refinements of eloquence must have been too exclusive, for while he was gaining fame in the noisy clubs of Norwich,
his father's property, which was wholly under his charge, he found to be rapidly sinking. He published very tolerable translations of Bürger's Lenore, and of Lessing's Nathan the Wise, and wrote in a rambling, confused sort of style a Historic Survey of German Poetry, 3 vols., 1828. Magazines and reviews received the greatest share of his attention, and in many of his appearances in the Monthly Review and others of the day, he gave more readable matter to his readers than they could find in the pages of his German Poetry. His management of the Norwich Iris proved a failure, and one of his last works on English Synonyms was essentially meagre. Taylor died in 1836. His Life has since been written by Robberds, 2 vols., London, 1843.