Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/433

 of different portraits prefixed by Taylor to his works. Of these the most interesting and animated is a small full-length figure, wearing a hat, introduced into a two-page engraving by Pierre Lombart [q. v.], prefixed to the ‘Holy Dying’ (1651). He was over middle height, very handsome in youth, with a fresh colour, his voice singularly musical. Of music he had a practical knowledge.

In his ‘Discourse of Friendship’ (1657), Taylor says, ‘I believe some wives have been the best friends in the world.’ It is remarkable that in his letters, often full of family affection, he never mentions his wives, except to record the burial of the first. On 27 May 1639 he married, at Uppingham, Phœbe, daughter of Gervase Landisdale or Langsdale, a gentleman of Holborn; her brother, Edward Langsdale, M.D., of Gainsborough, afterwards of Leeds (b. 24 Nov. 1619, buried 7 Jan. 1683–4), was Taylor's pupil at Cambridge in 1633; she died in 1651 (before 1 April). By her he had William, buried at Uppingham on 28 May 1642; two sons who died of small-pox in the winter of 1656–7; Charles, buried at St. Margaret's, Westminster, on 2 Aug. 1667; Phœbe, died unmarried; and Mary, married Francis Marsh [q. v.] By 1655 he had married his second wife, Joanna Bridges, said to be a natural daughter of Charles I (Heber makes this a bar to Taylor's preferment in England); by her he had Edward, buried at Lisburn on 10 March 1660–1; and Joanna (on whom her mother's estate at Mandinam was settled) married Edward Harrison of Magheralin, a member of the Irish bar and M.P. for Lisburn (W. T. Jones was her descendant). Tradition affirms that Mrs. Taylor survived her husband, and was buried in his vault at Dromore (the parish register begins in 1784). At Dromore Cathedral is a massive silver chalice with cover and paten of Dublin make, all inscribed ‘Deo Dedit humillima Domini Ancilla D. Ioanna Taylor;’ the date mark appears to be 1679.

Rust assigns to Taylor ‘the good humour of a gentleman, the eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the acuteness of a schoolman, the profoundness of a philosopher, the wisdom of a chancellor, the sagacity of a prophet, the reason of an angel, and the piety of a saint.’ Arnold writes (November 1836), ‘I admire Taylor's genius, but yet how little was he capable of handling worthily any great question!’ As a thinker he must be estimated by his ‘Liberty of Prophesying,’ better described by its first title, ‘Theologia Eclectica;’ important, not as being the first or the fullest statement of the principles of toleration, but as the most fruitful in its effects upon the English mind. The breadth of the treatise is more apparent than real. Its range is narrowed by the fact that the common profession of Christianity is assumed throughout. In matters of Christian religion, ‘reason is the judge;’ all other authorities can but present evidence, of which reason must determine the force. On questions of speculative opinion there is room for variety of judgment, nor can any man be certain that his judgment is better than another's; ‘probability is our guide,’ amounting at most to a reasonable confidence. Hence it is wrong to molest any for erroneous judgment; no one who ‘lives a good life’ is a heretic. While the perplexities of Christian opinion are discussed with an engaging frankness, the net result is a purely legal settlement. It is concluded (§ xvii.) that the laws of the ‘governors of the church’ must be paramount; but ‘personal dispensations’ may be granted, consistently with ‘the public good.’ This was excellent as a plea for elbow-room under a puritan régime, and we may admire the wary skill with which Taylor contrived to define his position without making a case for the presbyterian establishment. But it is vain to seek in his treatise a justification of his subsequent hope to anglicise the religions of Ireland. Warwick says that Charles I did not like the ‘Liberty of Prophesying’ (Memoires, 1701, p. 301). Michael Lort, D.D. [q. v.], in a letter to Bishop Percy (, Illustrations, vii. 464), tells the tale that Taylor sent over Lewis, his chaplain, to buy up all the copies he could find, which were burned at Dromore, after a day of fasting and prayer. If the story is true, Taylor's later advance in sacramental doctrine may have dissatisfied him with the curiously impartial section (xviii.) in which he argues for and against infant baptism, and ends with the dictum that ‘there is much more truth than evidence on our side.’

Next to the ‘Liberty of Prophesying,’ the most famous of Taylor's works were the ‘Rule and Exercises of Holy Living’ (1650, 12mo) and the ‘Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying’ (1651, 12mo). The former reached a fourteenth edition in 1686, and has been many times reissued since, both in England and in America. The ‘Holy Dying’ has proved even more popular. A twenty-first edition was issued in 1710, and frequent editions have appeared during the present century, no less than seven having been issued by Pickering. These two books, with Taylor's ‘Worthy Communicant,’ ‘may be said to offer a complete summary of the duties, and