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, Bart. His grandfather, Nathaniel Taylor, was one of those puritans whom "Cromwell thought fit to elect by a letter, dated June 14, 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 gentlemen'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 many tokens 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 Bischo 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."

Towards 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 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 child-bed. 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 Taylor, Jeremy, 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 (afterwards Abercorn), 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. 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 singular 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. Having survived his second wife little more than a year, he died of a decline in the forty-sixth year of his age, December 29, 1731, and was buried in the churchyard of St Ann's, Soho.

Taylor, Jeremy, a distinguished theologian, was born at Cambridge, and was baptised 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 Soul's 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 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 admitted 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 Easy 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 Prophecying; shewing the Unreasonableness of prescribing to other Men's Faith, and the Iniquity of persecuting different Opinions.

Dr Taylor's Liberty of Prophecying, 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 I. 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 kindness of 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. 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 Earl 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 meantime, he devoted his learned leisure to the completion of a very remarkable work, published immediately after the restoration, under the title of *Doctor Dubitantium; or the Rule of Conscience in all her General Measures*, Lond. 1660, fol. This is the most extensive and learned book on casuistry in the English language. 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. 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 sermon 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 Hallam's opinion the sermons of Jeremy Taylor are—

"Far above any that had preceded them in the Church of England. An imagination essentially poetical, and sparing none of the decorations which, by critical rules, are deemed almost peculiar to verse; a warm tone of pieté, sweetness, and charity; an accumulation of circumstantial accessories whenever the reasons or objects described are an endless puzzle; putting itself forth in quotations till his sermons become in some places almost a varnish of flowers from all other writers, and especially from those of classical antiquity, never before so redundantly scattered from the pulpit, distinguish Taylor from his contemporaries by their degree, as they do from most of his successors by their kind. His sermons on the 'Marriage Ring,' on the 'House of Feasting,' on the 'Apples of Sodom,' may be named without disparagement to others, which, perhaps, ought to stand in equal place. But they are not without considerable faults, some of which have just been hinted. The eloquence of Taylor is great, but it is not eloquence of the highest class; it is far too Asiatic, too much in the style of Chrysostom, and other declaimers of the fourth century, by the study of whom he had probably vitiated his taste; his learning is ill-placed, and his arguments often much so; not to mention that he has the common defect of alleging nugatory proofs; his vehemence loses its effect by the circuitry of his pleonastic language; his sentences are of endless lengths, and hence not only altogether unnatural, but not always reducible to grammar. But he is still the greatest ornament of the English pulpit up to the middle of the seventeenth century; and we have no reason to believe, or rather much reason to disbelieve, that he has any competitor in other languages."—Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe, vol. iii. c. ii.

An edition of Bishop Taylor's whole works, with a copious life of the author, by Bishop Huber, 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 been often reprinted.

Taylor, John, commonly known as the Water Poet, was born in Gloucestershire in 1580, and was apprenticed at an early age to a Thames waterman, whose avocation consisted in conveying the citizens of London from Windsor Bridge to Gravesend. Taylor says there were no fewer than 40,000 watermen in those days of peace, before the introduction of hackney coaches, or, as the Water Poet terms them, in true waterman politeness, "hyred hackney hell-carts." During a time of war the watermen were in constant request to man the fleet, so that Taylor himself, during his threescore years and ten, had made no fewer than sixteen voyages in the Queen's ships, and was with Essex at Cadiz and the Azores. He was a shrewd, fluent, passionate individual, who engaged in numerous "wagering adventures," sometimes to the no small danger of his life; such as rowing between London and Queensborough in a paper boat, with two stockfish for oars! This adventure he performed with one Roger Bird, a vintner, who seems to have been reduced to a deplorable plight when night came. As Taylor has it,

"The water four miles broad, no oars to row, Night dark, and where we were we did not know; And thus, 'twixt doubt and fear, hope and despair, I fell to work, and Roger Bird to prayer. And as the surges up and down did move us, He cried, most fervently, 'Good Lord receive us.'"

This four-mile voyage they accomplished in a day and a half: the bottom of their paper boat having given way, there was nothing to trust to for more than half-way but "eight large and well-blown bladders!" Now he embarks in "a very merry wherry-ferry voyage" from London to York; again he undertakes "a discovery by sea from London to Salisbury." Laying aside his oars for a time, he sets out on "The Penniless Pilgrimage, or the Moneyless Perambulation of John Taylor, alias the King's Majesty's Water Poet;" [narrating] how he travelled on foot from London to Edinburgh in Scotland, not carrying any money to or fro, neither begging, borrowing, or asking meat, drink, or lodging." Taylor complains bitterly of the scurvy manner in which many of those who engaged him in those insane frolics afterwards treated him in his "Scourge for Baseness, a Kicksey-Winsey, or a Lorry-cum-Twang." During the state troubles which ensued, Taylor, who was too brave a man to turn with the tide, left London for Oxford. While here he issued his squibs against the Roundheads, and made himself "much esteemed for his factious company." Returning again to London after the surrender of Oxford, he kept a public-house in Phoenix Alley, near Long Acre, where, after the king's death, he set up a mourning crown for his sign. Compelled to remove this piece of loyal devotion, he elevated his own portrait in its stead. Here he died in 1656, and was buried in the churchyard of St Paul's, Covent Garden. In 1680 he made a collection of All the Works of John Taylor, the Water Poet, which are now exceedingly scarce.

Taylor, John, a very learned philologer and civilian, was a native of Shrewsbury, and was baptised on the 22d of June 1704. His father followed the trade of a barber, and the son was destined for the same occupation; but his early and unconquerable love of books, and his strong predilection for literature, recommended him to the patronage of a gentleman of fortune, Edward Owen, of Condover, to whom he was chiefly indebted for the advantages of an Taylor, 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 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 Condiver 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 Nichols. 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 Lytice 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. Decemvirales de inopie Debitorum in partes discedendo, Cantab. 1742, 4to. On the 15th of February 1741-2, Dr Taylor was admitted an advocate at Doctors' Commons. After a short interval, he exhibited a new proof of his profound knowledge of classical antiquity, by the publication of his Marmor Sandricense, cum commentario et notis, Cantab. 1743, 4to. The very ancient marble, on which he supplies so learned a commentary, 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, Eschines, Dinarchus, and Demades, Cantab. 1748, 4to. The second volume made its appearance in 1757. It contains the controversial orations of Demosthenes and Eschines, 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. 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. 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 Bishop-Stortford School-feast, 26th August 1749, and the other before the House of Commons on the fast-day, 11th February 1757. In 1822 they were both reprinted at the suggestion of Dr Parr, who has added notes to the first. He resigned the office of registrar in 1758, and quitted Cambridge to reside in London. 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. 1775, 4to.

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 litaney-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 his marginal annotations.

Taylor, Thomas, generally known as the Platonist, was born in London on the 15th of May 1758. After spending some time at St Paul's school, he was removed to Sheerness, where he spent several years with a relation. A premature marriage and pecuniary difficulties compelled him to relinquish his design of prosecuting his studies for the church. He became a clerk to a banking-house, and subsequently assistant-secretary to the Society for the Encouragement of arts, manufactures, and commerce. He devoted all his spare time to the study of Greek literature, and to the revival and elucidation of the Platonic philosophy. Taylor succeeded in obtaining the patronage of the Duke of Norfolk and a Mr Meredith, a retired tradesman, who published his translations of Plato, Aristotle, and other distinguished Greek writers. His writings number in all thirty-eight distinct works; and some of them, such as the Plato and Aristotle, consist of five and nine volumes respectively. A detailed list of Taylor's writings may be seen in the English Cyclopaedia. Meredith settled on him a pension of £1,100 a year, and he contrived to extend his income to £200. On this paltry pittance he lived and worked until his end came in 1835. Taylor is said to have been a man of great candour, and a delightful companion.

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 Robberis, 2 vols., London, 1843.