MR. WILLMOTT'S JEREMY TAYLOR.
Or the life of Jeremy Taylor, the poetical preacher of the Anglican Church, not many detailed particulars are known. He was born at Cambridge, in 1613; educated at an humble free school in that town ; and thence transferred to Caius College, as a Sizar, in 1626. He took Isis Bachelor's degree in 1631; and was about the same time elected a Fellow : he soon after became Master of Arts, and was ordained before he was of age.
Like most men of a distinct and peculiar genius, Jeremy Taylor dis- played his powers early, if not in their ripeness yet in their blossom. Preaching at St. Paul's, at the request of a friend, he made so great an impression, that rumours of his eloquence reached Laud. The Arch- bishop sent for him, entertained hopes of him, and, by an exercise of power, nominated him to a Fellowship at All Soul's College; for the Warden having refused to concur in the election that the Fellows had been influenced to make, as contrary to the statutes, the Fellowship was kept empty till the presentation lapsed to Laud as Visiter. In 1637, through the same influence, Jeremy Taylor was presented to the Rectory of Uppingham ; where, two years afterwards, be married. This was the first, and if not the highest, the pleasantest flood-tide of fortune ; which soon after began to ebb. His patron, Laud, was committed to the Tower in 1640. In May 1642, Taylor's youngest son died ; his wife soon fol- lowed; and before the autumn he appears to have left or been driven from his parish to join the King's army as Chaplain.* Henceforward till the Restoration, he was always in adversity, sometimes in difficulty. He appears to have been taken prisoner in 1644, with a party that was be- sieging Cardigan Castle, but who were taken themselves instead. For the next fourteen years, there is not so much obscurity as want of spe- cificality. He married a second time ; it is not known when, or whom ; but the lady is said to have been a natural daughter of Charles the First, and to have had some fortune. He lived a considerable space in Wales, under the patronage of Lord Carbery, doing parochial duty, and, it is as- serted, keeping a school. The publication of a collection of prayers, called Golden Grove, the name of Lord Carbery's seat, caused him to be im- prisoned; and he is reported to have been subsequently confined a second time, though particulars and proof are alike wanting. From Evelyn's Correspondence it would seem that Taylor was in pecuniary difficulties ; which is scarcely reconcileable with the fact of his wife's property, unless he had been fined. Wearied out with these troubles at home, in 1658 he accepted a lectureship at Portmore, in Ireland, under the patronage of Lord Conway ; where he remained till the Restoration.
Greater worldly prosperity awaited him on this event: he was imme- diately promoted to the Bishopric of Down and Connor, and henceforth enjoyed an ample income. But he only furnished another example of the checkered fortunes of man He was virulently assailed by the Papists : he was unfortunate in his family ; one son died the year after his father's promotion ; another was killed in a duel with a brother officer; and the last survivor, who was secretary and companion to Villiers the second and "witty" Duke of Buckingham, fell into a consumption, brought on by irregularities ; and died at the same time as his father—August 1667.
A few letters of Taylor and of Evelyn—the Bishop's funeral sermon preached by his friend Rust—some occasional notices by contemporaries, allusions in Jeremy Taylor's own works, and the dates of their publi- cations—furnish circumstances for filling up this meagre outline : but there lacked materials for a volume, unless it were stuffed out after the fashion of some modern biographies. This Mr. Willmott has judici- ously avoided, at the same time that he has turned his reading of our old divines to account. Bishop Jeremy Taylor is not so much a biography, as one of those portrait-pictures which are the fashion of the day, where a leading individual is made the principal figure, and the other persons are grouped about him. The life of Taylor is prefaced by a view of the early state of English prose ; and sketches of the characters of the Romish clergy, drawn from the satirical writers—not always the most trustworthy authorities for the whole truth. These are succeeded by no- tices of the preachers contemporary with the Reformation and following it, up to the appearance of Jeremy Taylor, together with glimpses of the state of the Church militant, struggling with Popery and the rapacity of * It is just as likely that Taylor left his parish to join the King; and was sub- sequently deprived of his living, and his "house plundered," for an overt act against the Parliament, not for his opinions or character. the courtiers. The life of Taylor is followed by a critical estimate of his eratorical character, both absolutely and in comparison with his contem- poraries; and the volume closes with a review of the pulpit eloquence of Tillotson and his successors, even down to Blair and Paley. Attraction is given to the book by the novelty and force of the earlier parts, as well as by the extent and variety of the whole. The author is in possession of his subjects; and from the space to which he restricts himself, he is compelled to present little more than the prominent features. In respect to composition, Mr. Willmott appears to have perused John- son's Lives of the Poets till he has caught rather the author's manner of casting his ideas for expression than the Johnsonian style of expression : at the same time he has studied the modern "article," and its great mas- ter, Macaulay. The choice of models is odd enough ; but the opposites are pretty well fused, though veins of each original material may often be perceived. The debt to Johnson seems to be an unconscious borrowing ; but the modern article has been an evident imitation ; and if Mr. Willmott is less rich and declamatory than Macaulay, it rather arises from a sub- ordinate imagination than a sobriety of taste. This style of composition gives popular attraction, though it does not add literary value to the book. Here is a picture of Paul's Cross.
"Various indeed were the scenes of which Paul's Cross was the witness in the days of its glory. At one time, the pavement beneath resounded to the feet of a multitude eager to catch every accent of Hooper, as he ascended the pulpit, with his scarlet chymere flowing to his feet, and the terrible square cap upon his head; or a penitent was going through his punishment, arrayed in a white sheet, with a taper in his hand, and standing upon a flat form erected on the outside of the pulpit. Meanwhile, the double balcony at the angle of the church was thronged by the nobility; the civic authorities shone in the robes of office; and distant groups of gentry, seated upon their horses, caught up _a few scattered sentences, as they loitered along the outskirts of the assembly. Here Jewell uttered his fa- mous challenge to Rome; here the Spanish King came to hear Gardiner, attended by a magnificent retinue of courtiers, and encircled by a guard of horsemen, four hundred in number. Here, too, the dead were carried to their last earthly home.. The churchyard of St. Paul's was the chief burial-ground of the metropolis; and the open graves furnished the preacher with the liveliest illustration of human vanity and decay. Here, too, were enacted some of the saddest scenes in the lives of eminent men. It was at Paul's Cross, amid the wondering gaze of twenty thousand persons, that the pious, the learned, and the persecuted Pecock, read, at the feet of the Archbishop, his abjuration of his "heretical opinions," after giving with his own hand fourteen of his books to the executioner appointed to commit them to the flames.
"Such was Paul's Cross; the resort of the devout, the curious, the learned, the idle, and the profane. The preacher was exposed to every variety, of interruption and insult from the political and religious prejudices of the crowd. The news of the defeat of the rebels in Norfolk being promulgated while Bonner was preaching at the Cross, he was stopped by the tumultuous shouting of the populace. At another time, when he ventured in the same place to attack the measures and conduct of Edward VI., the congregation gave visible signs of displeasure. Mur- murs arose; caps were thrown into the air; stones, and even a dagger, were flung at him; and be himself escaped with difficulty into St. Paul's School, where he re- mained until the crowd had dispersed. This was in 1558, after the accession of Mary."
Paul's Cross, as a means of influencing the popular mind, is familiar to the commonest readers of English history, from the use made of Dr. Shaw by Richard the Third, when Protector, to preach up his right to the throne. It continued, in fact, to be an attraction, and of course a means of in- fluence, till the paTnphlet and Parliamentary speaking superseded it. The actor, too, as well as the printer and the speaker, might possibly have shaken the power of St. Paul a little. At all events, the theatre offered its attractions on the same day. "There was one feature in the character of Elizabeth which influenced, though unconsciously and in a minor degree, the pulpit eloquence of her reign; and that was, her partiality to theatrical amusements and shows. Burbage, a name fa- mous from its connexion with Shakspere, obtained a royal licence for dramatics performances on Sunday. Eight theatres were open in London upon every Sab- bath-day. Bills of the amusements were scattered about the streets; and when the bell tolled to the lecture, the trumpet sounded to the stage. A contemporary preacher complains that the necessity of early attendance to secure a seat caused the churches to be empty while the theatres were fulL The observance of the Sabbath in the country was not always more strict. It sometimes happened, during the service, that the village church was surrounded by crowds of morns- dancers, jumpinF in nets. Efforts were certainly made to mitigate this desecra- tion of the Lord s-day.. The Privy Council issued a condemnatory proclamation in 1581; but an accident, which occurred in the following year at one of the most notable places of public resort, was a more effectual remedy; and fear helped to accomplish what authority was obliged to leave unfinished. One of the wooden galleries in Paris Garden fell, in the January of 1582, destroying several persons. "However objectionable in its nature, this theatrical system was not altogether without its use. London at that period resembled Athens, in the fait of its in- struction being derived from the theatre and the pulpit, as that of the Grecian city had been from the theatre and the hems. The dramatist and preacher of the one corresponded to the dramatist and orator of the other. There was no education, and, in a popular sense, no literature."
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