take to Himself three of his sons within three months. Though he had learned quiet submission to the will of God, yet the affliction so affected him that he was willing to leave the country, and Lord Conway took him into Ireland, and settled him at Portmore, a place well adapted for study and contemplation, which, therefore, he greatly loved. Soon after King Charles the Second was restored, he fixed Dr. Taylor in the bishopric of Down and Connor. With great care and faithfulness he discharged the duties of this important office, gave most excellent rules and directions to his clergy, and taught them by his own example. Upon his coming to the bishopric, he was made a Privy Councillor; and the University of Dublin recommended him for their Vice-Chancellor, which honourable office he kept to his dying day. God had befriended him much in his constitution; he was of a most obliging disposition, of great candour, of singular intelligence, and of such a sweetness of address in familiar discourse, as made his conversation both pleasing and profitable. His soul was made up of harmony. He never spoke but he charmed his hearer, not only with the clearness of his reasoning, but with his expressions; his very tone and the cadences of his voice being peculiarly musical. He weighed men's reasons and not their names, and was not frightened from receiving truth by the ugly visors which men usually put upon the opinions they dislike. He considered that it is not likely that any one party should wholly engross truth to themselves, but that obedience is the only way to true knowledge (John vii. 17); that God always, and only, teaches humble, ingenuous minds that are willing to hear and ready to obey according to their light; that it is impossible that a pure, lowly, resigned soul should be kept out of heaven, though there might be some mistakes in his judgment; that God's design is, not merely to fill men's heads, nor to feed their curiosity, but to improve their lives. Such considerations as these made him impartial, so that he gave due allowance to his opponents, and contended for truth, not for victory. To these advantages of nature and excellences of spirit he added an indefatigable industry, to which God gave a plentiful bene diction; for there were very few kinds of learning of which he was not master. He was wonderfully versed in all polite literature; he had thoroughly digested all the ancient moralists, Greek and Roman; the poets and orators; and was acquainted with the refined wits of the later ages, both French and Italian. His skill was great both in the Civil and Canon Law and Casuistical Divinity. He was a most excellent conductor of souls, and knew how to give counsel, to solve difficulties, to determine cases of conscience, and quiet the minds of men. Taylor was a poet, as well as an orator and theologian. His verses are quaint, but musical; e.g.: 'Where Thou prepar'st a glorious place, For every spirit To inherit, That builds his hope upon Thy merit. . . . On Taylor's writings Willmott justly remarks: "If we open a volume of old Theology immediately after closing a modern one, the sensation is most pleasurable. We escape from the gaudy flower-pots and shrubberies into the stately and embowered walks, statued terraces, fruitful walls, and marble fountains of a more picturesque and meditative nature. Whatever be the eccentricities of construction or embellishment, we feel that they involved an immense outlay of study and wealth. In his day the French school of pulpit oratory was only rising. Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and La Rue belong to a subsequent period. Coleridge complains of his occasional and imperfect references to the scheme of Redemption. In literature as in art there is no perfect and independent originality; every Eneid is the expansion or modification of an Iliad. The most successful have always been the most imitative. Rubens surrounded himself with medals and drawings. Gray never attempted to compose until he had read a canto of Spenser. Taylor borrowed from Sir John Hayward.' |