Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/471

  writer of shorthand as well as a teacher of the art, because in the list of subscribers to his work there is a preponderating proportion of attorneys-at-law and barristers. It appears that Taylor took down a speech delivered by the Right Hon. John Foster in the Irish parliament in 1783. Taylor's name appears in the ‘Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors,’ published in 1816; and Harding, in his edition of the ‘Shorthand,’ published in 1823, speaks of ‘the late Samuel Taylor.’

The great merit of Taylor's system of shorthand is its extreme simplicity. It consists of a consonantal alphabet of nineteen letters and a very few abbreviating rules, so that it can be acquired in much less time than more complicated methods. An account of the alphabet appeared in the ‘Journalist’ of 1 April 1887, p. 388. The system rapidly acquired popularity, and it is largely practised at the present day, especially in the courts of law. It has been re-edited, varied, and ‘improved’ by some forty English authors; and adapted to the French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, Hungarian, and other foreign languages. William Harding brought out in 1823 an improved edition of Taylor, which reached a fifteenth edition in 1833. Another presentation of the system by George Odell, issued at a very low price, first appeared in 1812, and passed through at least sixty-four editions. An adaptation of Taylor's system was published by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Isaac Pitman in 1837 in ‘Stenographic Sound-hand,’ whence grew ‘Phonography.’ An ingenious modification of Taylor's system on a phonetic basis by Mr. Alfred Janes, parliamentary reporter, appeared in 1885 (4th edit. 1892).

 TAYLOR, SILAS (1624–1678), antiquary. [See .]

TAYLOR, SIMON (d. 1772), botanical painter, was trained in the drawing-school of William Shipley [q. v.] About 1760 he was engaged by Lord Bute to paint the rare plants at Kew for him. John Ellis writes to Linnæus, 28 Dec. 1770: ‘We have a young man, one Taylor, who draws all the rare plants of Kew Garden for Lord Bute; he does it tolerably well: I shall employ him very soon’ (Correspondence of Linnæus, i. 255). He was also employed by John Fothergill [q. v.] He died in 1772. In 1794, after Lord Bute's death in 1792, a large collection of paintings of plants on vellum by Taylor was sold by auction. The paintings he executed for Fothergill were sold on Fothergill's death in 1780 to the Empress of Russia for 2,000l., not a high price considering that Taylor usually charged three guineas for each of his paintings. The date of his death is uncertain.

 TAYLOR, THOMAS (1576–1633), puritan divine, was born in 1576 at Richmond, Yorkshire, where his father, a man of good family, was known as a friend to puritans and silenced ministers in the north. He distinguished himself at Cambridge, became fellow and reader in Hebrew at Christ's College, proceeded B.D. 1628, and was incorporated D.D. at Oxford in 1630 (, Alumni, 1500–1714). He began preaching at twenty-one, and when only about twenty-five delivered a sermon at St. Paul's Cross before Queen Elizabeth. His admirers said he stood 'as a brazen wall against popery.' In a sermon delivered at St. Mary's, Cambridge, in 1608, he denounced Bancroft's severe treatment of puritans, and was silenced by Archbishop Harsnet and threatened with degradation. It was only after much hindrance that he obtained his doctor's degree (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1628-9, p. 127).

Taylor was living at Watford, perhaps as vicar, in 1612, and later removed to Reading, where his brother, Theophilus Taylor, M.A., was pastor of St. Lawrence Church from 1618 to 1640. Here 'a nursery of young preachers ' gathered round him, among them being William Jemmat [q. v.], who afterwards edited his works. On 22 Jan. 1625 Taylor was chosen minister of St. Mary Aldermanbury, London. There he continued zealously preaching until about 1630, when from failing health he retired to Isleworth for country air. He died at Isleworth in January or February 1632–3, and was buried at St. Mary Aldermanbury, Jemmat preaching his funeral sermon. He left a widow. Taylor bestowed on 12 Aug. 1629 a bounty of 15l., to be laid out in coals for the godly poor of Richmond, his birthplace, under the oversight of his brother, Benjamin Taylor (, Hist. and Antiquities of Richmond, p. 233). 