This letter makes certain what Heber had already conjectured, that Taylor's letter of May 12, 1658, in which he declines a lectureship offered him by a friend of Evelyn's, on the condition of alternating with a presbyterian, "like Castor and Pollux, the one up and the other down," does not refer to Lord Conway's chaplaincy. ready in his own library and to procure | privacy, opportunities of studying much, him a copy of Castalio against Beza. The and opportunities of doing some little latter was probably of Taylor's own re- good." He is "endeared with the neighcommending; for he sympathized with bourhood," he "would count it next to a him both in his anti-Calvinistic theology divorce to be drawn from it;" he "would and in his desire for freedom of religion. fain account himself fixed there during his There is no denying that his expressions life; if his lordship will but come himof gratitude to Lord Conway are, to our self to reside on his Irish estates, he may notions, hyperbolical and unsuited to the bore Taylor's ear, and make him his slave dignity of a great divine. Such expres- for ever. Yet he confesses, in the samə sion are quite in the manner of the time; letter, that, in the absence of Major Rawyet Lord Conway seems to have been a lit-don, Lord Conway's brother-in-law and tle annoyed at their exuberance, for his agent, there was nothing around him but manly reply contains thing very like ingens solitudo," and "the country like a reproof. the Nomades, without law and justice. In truth, the troubles of the time penetrated into his pleasant recess. In June 1659, he writes to Evelyn:-"a presbyterian and a madman have informed against me as a dangerous man to their religion and for using the sign of the cross in baptism." This information led to the issuing of a warrant by the Irish Privy CounIn Lord Conway he had one of the kind- cil, which brought him to Dublin early est and most considerate of patrons, who in 1659-60, “in the worst of our winter did the best to smooth the way for him in weather, " to the serious detriment of his his difficulties. Besides giving him the health. He seems, however, to have obbenefit of his own influence, he procured tained an easy acquittal from the Anafor him introductions to some of the most baptist commissioners." On April 9, considerable persons in Ireland, and Dr. 1659, he writes to Lord Conway § that his Petty, who had been employed in the opus magnum, his great book on cases of survey of Ireland and knew the country conscience, is finished, except two little well, "promised to provide him a pur- chapters, and that he has sent a servant chase of land at great advantage." More- to London with the copy; he begs his over, my Lord Protector, who was perhaps not sorry to have so distinguished a royalist removed from London, "gave him a pass and protection for himself and his family under his sign manual and privy signet." The letter from which these expressions are taken is dated June 15, 1658, and Taylor had probably left London for Ireland a short time before. He settled at Portmore, "a place," says Rust, "made for study and contemplation, " where he may have seen "the round towers of other days" shining in the wave beneath him as he strayed on the banks of Lough Neagh. He evidently enjoyed this "most charming recess," and writes in a tone of great contentment to Lord Conway, to whom a son and heir had just been born: "since my coming into Ireland, by God's blessing and your lordship's favour, I have had plenty and Afterwards Sir William Petty, author of the "Political Anatomy of Ireland," and founder of the English settlement at Kenmare. + Printed in Heber's Life," p. cclxxxvi. Taylor dates his epitaph on Dr. Stearne, amœnissimo recessu in Portmore; " "Life," p. lxxxvii. " ex Heber's lordship to forward to him the sheets of his work as they were printed, Lord Conway having no doubt frequent communications with friends who resided on his Irish property. Meantime, Oliver Cromwell was dead, and the reins of government were slipping from the slack hands of his son Richard. In the spring of the momentous year 1660 we find Taylor in London; on April 24 in that year he signed the famous Declaration" to General Monk; in May, Charles landed in England; and in June Taylor dedicated to his restored sovereign the work of many laborious years, his "Ductor Dubitantium." Charles probably did not bestow much attention on the learned work thus offered to him, for his was not a conscience troubled with doubts; but so eminent a royalist as Jeremy Taylor could not be passed over in the distribution of ecclesiastical preferment. In August, 1660, he was ap versity of Dublin, where he "found all things in a perfect disorder;" and in February he was made a member of the Irish Privy Council; neither of these offices was a sinecure. pointed to the see of Down and Connor, to which that of Dromore was afterwards added. Various conjectures have been offered to account for his not having been nominated for an English see; as, that the king wished his natural sister, Taylor's The state of his diocese may well have wife, to be removed to a distance froin filled with dismay a man who loved study the court; a conjecture which seems in and quiet, and shrank from heat and viothe highest degree improbable, even if we lence. In no part of Ireland had the cleargrant the fact, not too well attested, that ance of the clergy of the Reformed Irish Joanna Bridges was a daughter of Charles Church been more effectual. The new I. It is, of course, possible that Taylor bishop found himself in the midst of a was appointed to an Irish see, simply be- body of Presbyterians, led by Scotchmen cause he had eminent qualifications for it. of the school of Cameron, with their origiIf we look to the interests of the diocese, nal fanaticism exasperated to the utmost we shall hardly find another man so quali- by contact with the votaries of Popery and fied to preside over it; at once learned, Prelacy. He was received with a storm able, and conciliatory; already acquainted of denunciation when he visited his diowith the district, and skilled in the contro- cese before his consecration; the Scotch versy both with Roman Catholics and Pres- ministers were implacable; they had agreed byterians. Lord Conway, too, seems to among themselves to preach vigorously have used his influence to procure the ap- and constantly against episcopacy and litpointment of his much-esteemed friend. urgy; they talked of resisting unto blood, whom he thought "the choicest person in and stirred up the people to sedition. England appertaining to the conscience" The bishop-designate preached every Sunto the diocese in which he was himself day among them, he invited them to a most interested.* Yet we cannot help conference, he courted them with most suspecting that Sheldon, the great man- friendly offers; but they would not even ager of ecclesiastical patronage in those speak with him: they had newly covedays, bore Taylor no good will. He had nanted to endure neither the person nor disliked his appointment at All Souls: he the office of a bishop. They bought his had been offended by what he thought books, and appointed a "committee of his Pelagian theology, and there was per- Scotch spiders to see if they could gather haps some other cause of rancour in the or make poison out of them;" they drew background; for Taylor, in a piteous let-up a statement against him, and intended to ter to Sheldon. in which he begs to be petition the King against his appointment. translated to England if his Grace does Nay, his very life was not safe; not only not wish him to "die immaturely, says did they try by every means to take the that he had been "informed by a good people's hearts from him, but they threathand," that his Grace had said that he ened to murder him outright. No wonder (Taylor) was himself the only hindrance that he says in despair, “It were better for to his being removed to an English bishop- me to be a poor curate in a village church ric. That which was the hindrance to his than a bishop over such intolerable perbeing translated to an English bishopric sons; " no wonder that he begs the Duke may have been the cause of his being re- of Ormond to give him some parsonage in moved from England in the first instance. Munster, where he may end his days in Whatever the cause of the appointment, peace. He had probably but little peace we cannot but fear that he left the pleas- for the remainder of his days; for thongh ant society of London, then bubbling with many of the laity in his dioceses were well excitement, for his disturbed diocese, with disposed, the opposition of the Presbytesomewhat the same feelings with which rian ministers, who were generally as Gregory Nazianzen sought his see in dull disloyal to the Government as unfriendly and remote Sasima. He was consecrated to the bishop, never ceased. In the with eleven other bishops, in the cathe- summer of 1663, we find him again comdral church of St. Patrick, Jan. 27, 1666-7, plaining of the meetings of the "preand himself preached the sermon. previously, on Ormond's recommendation, been chosen Vice-Chancellor of the Uni He had Taylor says (letter to Lord Conway of March 2, 1660-1, in Mr. Murray's possession) that I am here.. I owe to my relations to your Lordship." tLife," p. cxix. He begs Lord Conway's interest to get him placed on the Privy Council, because it would add so much reputation to him among the Scots, and be useful for settling the diocese." (Letter of Jan. 2, 1660-1, in Mr. Murray's possession). † Letter of Dec. 19, 1660, to the Duke of Ormond, in" Life," p. ci. tended ministers," of the refractoriness of | paten.* Nor was this the only form in the people and their mutinous talkings; which his liberality showed itself; all and a few months before his death he tells accounts agree, that now that he was able, Ormond of the advance of the former mis- for the first time in his life, to dispense inchiefs, and believes that the Scotch rebel- stead of receiving bounty, he fed the lion of 1655" was either born in Ireland hungry, clothed the naked, and provided or put to nurse there." * The North of for the fatherless. He was," says Sir Ireland immediately after the Restoration James Ware,† "so charitable to the poor, was certainly no place for a bishop who that, except moderate portions to his loved peace. daughters, he spent all his income on alms and public works." 66 66 66 second marriage, only one survived the sickness which attacked the household in Wales, and him he buried at Lisburn. Two sons of the first marriage grew up to manhood, both of whom seemed to have shared in the wild follies of the Restoration period. The eldest, a captain of horse, fell in a duel with a brother officer named Vane, who also died of his wounds; and the good bishop almost sank under the blow. The second became secretary to Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and died at his house in Baynard's Castle a few days before his father, who was probably spared the pain of hearing of his death. The bishop himself was attacked by fever at Lisburn, on the 3rd of August, 1667, and died after ten days' illness, in the seventh year of his episcopate. He was fifty-four years of age, if we suppose him to have been born in 1613, or fifty-six, if, as the records of Caius College seem to indicate, he was born in 1611. Whatever his age, his fancy had not grown dim, nor the natural force of his intellect abated. Yet his misery was not without alleviations; the great Ormond supported and All this time his health appears to have encouraged him, and Lord Conway was a been delicate. We find constantly in his steady and sympathizing friend. He hoped letters that he is suffering from a great in the first instance to live at Lisnegarvy cold" with pain and feverishness; more [Lisburn], and got a very pretty design than once he complains, as in the letter to for his house" from a gentleman in Dublin Sheldon above referred to, that the clithat had "very good skill in architec- mate in which he lived was unsuitable for ture." Probably, this design was found him. And he was not without heavy for the time impracticable, for he continued domestic affliction. Of the sons of his to reside at Portmore, where he had a house and farm, as we learn from a curious story preserved in Glanvil's "Sadducismus triumphatus," of the ghost seen by David Hunter, "neatherd at the bishop's house at Portmore." Still, however, he does not seem to have abandoned the hope of having a cathedral and a palace at Lisburn. The church of that place was made a cathedral for the united sees of Down and Connor by letters patent October 22, 1662, the old cathedral of Down having been burnt by Lord-Deputy Gray in 1538, and still lying waste in 1637, when it was the subject of a correspondence between Laud and Strafford,§ which had no result in consequence of the troubles soon following. In 1665, we find him urging upon Lord Conway the care of their "great concern, the cathedral of Lisburn," and proposing to his Lordship to give lands in Lisburn in exchange for Church lands, that the bishops may have a "convenient seat" there. It was important for them to have a strong, as well as a convenient house, for it was not improbable that they might have to maintain themselves in it by force against a rebellion. Again, in a later letter (probably of 1666) he hopes that by this time his Lordship hath some account of the King's letter for their cathedral. He rebuilt the choir of the ruined cathedral of Dromore at his own expense, and the "handmaid of the Lord," Joanna Taylor, the bishop's wife, presented the chalice and Probably no English divine, even in those days when so many were cast out of their stalls or their parsonages, led a more chequered life than Jeremy Taylor. Cambridge, London, Oxford, Uppingham, the royal army, the retreat in Wales, the lectureship and the bishopric in Ireland, all pass before us in a life not prolonged much beyond middle age. No doubt these many changes, with their attendant miseries, and the feeling of being constantly "Life," cix. ccxci. ↑ "Hist of Ireland," Ed. Harris, ii. 210. This rests on the authority of Lady Ware, Taylor's granddaughter, who, making her statement at an advanced age, has probably confused some of the details. See "Life," pp. ccxx. ccxcviii. under suspicion, must have been very communication with Mr. Royston, the grievous to the soul of one who loved bookseller, and contrived to keep himself study and evidently enjoyed the refine- acquainted with the current literature of ments of courtly society. In fact, a tone the day, both English and foreign. He of querulousness does appear here and "would rather furnish his study with there in his letters; yet on the whole we Plutarch and Cicero, with Livy and Polybelieve that Taylor, in the midst of his dis- bius, than with Cassandra and Ibrahim tresses and wanderings, was a happy man; Bassa; "* yet he did not despise either he had the disposition which instinctively Madame de Scuderi, or Whetstone, or Tom withdraws itself from the contact of the Nash; he read Dante, but he was not petty roughnesses of life and seizes such averse to pass an hour with Poggio Bracenjoyments as are attainable. He would ciolini; he would recreate himself after walk in the sunshine while sunshine was his meditations on Holy Dying with a to be found, and not voluntarily seek the story of Petronius. His cry is still, "how bleak hill-side. The works of so very is any art or science likely to improve? imaginative a writer give but an imperfect What good books are lately public? reflection of the character of the man; What learned men abroad or at home when a man can so readily throw himself into the mood which beseems the occasion, we hardly know what mood is natural to him: Garrick's Hamlet gives no indications of Garrick's own personality. Nevertheless, with all Taylor's changes of style and even of thought, the undercurrent of sweetness, gentleness, and tolerance is so constant that we can hardly doubt that these did indeed form an essential part of his character. And to this sweetness we have a better testimony than that of his works - his power of attracting friends. We have seen in the course of this sketch how John Evelyn, Lord Carbery, and Lord Conway valued him as a friend and spiritual adviser, and were ready on all occasions to forward his interests. And these were not all; another of his noble friends was Christopher, Lord Hatton, to whom he dedicated the "Life of Christ;" that he was received in the mansion of the Chaworths we find from the letter quoted above; and in Ireland, he seems to have lived on the most friendly terms with the Rawdons and the Hills of Hillsborough. If the richness of his conversation at all corresponded to that of his writings, he must have been a most charming companion; and he had that instinctive sympathy which adapts itself without effort to the disposition of the person addressed. Probably his episcopate was the least happy portion of his life; but such a man, with such friends, was not likely to be altogether miserable. It is even pathetic to see how, in the midst of the distractions of his changeful life, he continues with indomitable perseverance his study and his writing. Besides Greek and Latin, he understood French and Italian; and not only was he extremely well read in patristic and scholastic theology, but he was constantly in begin anew to fill the mouth of fame in Dublin.* From this we find that, in his | may produce almost at will; they almost opinion, the works of Episcopius, the all involved careful research and reflection. great leader of the Arminians in the Low His studies and writings ranged over the Countries, "contained the whole body of whole field of theology; there is hardly a orthodox religion ;" and there are manifest doctrinal point on which he has not extraces of the influence of this remarkable pressed an opinion, generally one which man upon his theology, and, indeed, upon marks him as beyond his age in vigour and a considerable portion of the contempora- independence of thought. He is not alry theology of England. Other continent- ways judicious, but he is rarely prejual writers whom he commends are Chem- diced; if he comes to a wrong conclusion nitz, Gerhard, Du Moulin, Chamier, Vos- it is not for want of admitting what might sius, and Casaubon. For school divinity be urged on the other side. he prefers Occam on the "Sentences," He is eminently a Church of England Aquinas's "Summa Theologiæ," with man; the breadth, simplicity, and nobleSuarez's "Comment; " Biel; and Estius ness of our National Church were dear to on the "Sentences; " his emphatic prefer- one who loved moderation and largeness ence for the Jesuits Estius and Suarez of spirit, and hated violence and tyranny helps to explain some of the weak points of with all his heart. He loved the middle his moral theology. In English divinity he way between tyranny and license; he recommends Hooker, Andrews, Laud, thinks "to the churches of the Roman Lord Falkland "Of Infallibility," Bram- Communion we can say that ours is rehall, Overall, Field, Sanderson, and Far- formed; to the Reformed churches we can ingdon, besides several of " Dr. Taylor's" say that ours is orderly and decent. At works, and some treatises tracts for the the Reformation we did not expose our times the fame of which has long passed churches to that nakedness which the exaway. But this list, intended for a stu-cellent men of our sister churches comdent in theology whom he wished to imbue plained to be among themselves." It was with his own theologic opinions, very imperfectly represents Taylor's reading, though it sufficiently indicates his preferences; it is, as he himself says, but the beginning of a theological library, fit for one who wished to be wise and learned in the Christian religion, as it is taught and professed in the Church of England." He himself studied the writings of foes as well as friends; he did not contend, as some have done, against Bellarmine and Calvin without reading their works; and he is often more successful in attacking his enemies than in supporting his friends. And if his perseverance in study is remarkable, his industry in writing is no less 80. In all the changes of his life, whether in his Welsh retirement or in the midst of the distractions of his Irish see, his pen seems to have been scarcely ever out of his hand. He wrote with extraordinary facility. In the twenty-five years between the publication of his "Defence of Episcopacy and his death, he published matter which, in his own days, filled several folio volumes, and even in the more compressed form of modern times furnishes a respectable shelf of octavos. If we could recover the whole of his correspondence, another volume would probably have to be added to the series. And these works were not of the kind which an ingenious person with a sufficient command of words "Life," p. lxxxviii. not yet characteristic of an Anglican divine to refuse the title of "sister" to the Protestant churches of the continent. Ile sincerely loved the Book of Common Prayer, and mourned when it was "cut in pieces with a pen-knife and thrown into the fire," though it was not consumed; he longed for it, as for a blessing once common, now removed to a distance; "when excellent things go away, and then look back upon us, as our blessed Saviour did upon St. Peter, we are more moved than by the nearer embraces of a full and actual possession." Of Scripture he speaks in terms at once reverent and reasonable, maintaining always its supreme authority, yet rejecting the opinion of those who think that "errors or imperfections in grammar were (in respect of the words) precisely immediate inspirations and dictates of the Holy Ghost." * With regard to the discipline of the Church he was a constant assertor of the superior claims of episcopal government. Not only in a set treatise, published in the very crash of the falling Church, but everywhere, if the subject suggests it, he defends episcopacy against the Presbyterian or Independent "novelists" of his time. He had an instinctive repugnance to democracy, whether in Church or State; his feelings, in spite of his breadth and tolerance, were essentially dainty and aris "Life," clxix. |