Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/483

 Douce [q. v.]; but the vacancy was already filled. On the basis of his magazine articles he issued his ‘English Synonyms Described,’ 1813, 8vo, a work from which his old schoolfellow George Crabb [q. v.] borrowed much (1824) without specific acknowledgment; it was reissued in 1850 and since; a German translation appeared in 1851. In 1823 he edited the works of his friend Sayers, prefixing an elaborate biography.

His magnum opus, the ‘Historic Survey of German Poetry,’ 1828–30, 3 vols. 8vo, was somewhat belated. It is a patchwork (Carlyle calls it a ‘jail-delivery’) of his previous articles and translations, with digressions on Homer, the Zendavesta, and other literary gleanings, while the ‘survey’ itself was not brought up to date. But it shows what Taylor had been doing for German studies during a literary life of forty years, and its value is that of a permanent conspectus of his work. His last publication was a ‘Memoir,’ 1831, 4to, of P. M. Martineau, a Norwich surgeon, written in conjunction with F. Elwes.

Taylor was a devoted son and a generous friend. It delighted him to encourage the studies of young men; George Borrow [q. v.] learned German from him ‘with extraordinary rapidity’ before he was eighteen, and has described him in ‘Lavengro.’ After his losses he cultivated chiefly the society of his juniors; hence Harriet Martineau's rather harsh judgment that he was spoiled by flattery. He was accused of initiating young men into habits of conviviality; what his censors really feared was the influence of his erratic opinions, but these were not always taken seriously. He was known to argue for an hour in proof that Adam was a negro; no one venturing to reply, he spent the next hour in answering himself and proving that Adam was white. In early life (1784) his friend Sayers was ‘decidedly the bolder theologian of the two, a relation which was afterwards to be reversed.’ In 1795 he contributed several hymns to a collection edited by William Enfield; one of them is based on two odes of Horace; others are retained in Dr. Martineau's collections. Till his mother's death (she was blind for twenty-two years) he constantly went with her to the Octagon chapel. He claimed to be a believer in the true teaching of Christ, maintaining that our Lord was the translator of Ecclesiasticus, and the author, ‘after the crucifixion,’ of the ‘Wisdom of Solomon.’ A revolting paradox as to our Lord's parentage was maintained by him in an anonymous ‘Letter concerning the Two First Chapters of Luke’ (1810). His religious philosophy appears in his memoir of John Fransham [q. v.] in the ‘Monthly Magazine,’ 1811; he describes it (1812) as ‘Philonic pantheism.’

He died, unmarried, at his residence, King Street, Norwich, on 5 March 1836, and was buried in the graveyard of the Octagon chapel. His portrait was painted by John Barwell (Cat. Third Loan Exhib. No. 273).

[The Memoir by John Warden Robberds, 1843, 2 vols. (portrait), is exceedingly full and accurate, giving much of Taylor's correspondence, and chronicling every article he wrote, but lacking an index. The pith is extracted by Georg Herzfeld in his valuable monograph, William Taylor von Norwich, eine Studie über das Einfluss der neueren deutschen Litteratur in England, 1897; Quarterly Review, lxxxiii. 27 seq.; Edinburgh Review, lxxxvii. 368 seq.; Autobiography of Harriet Martineau, i. 297 seq.; Mrs. Oliphant's Hist. of English Literature, 1790–1825, i. 386; information from the late John Withers Dowson of Norwich.] 

TAYLOR, WILLIAM BENJAMIN SARSFIELD (1781–1850), painter of landscapes and military subjects, the son of John Taylor, a map-engraver in Dublin, was born in 1781. By his mother he was descended from Patrick Sarsfield [q. v.] John Sydney Taylor [q. v.] was his younger brother. He began life in the army commissariat, and, serving in the Peninsular war, was present at the siege of San Sebastian. Quitting the service, he devoted himself to art, though without any conspicuous success. He exhibited landscapes, sea-pieces, and military subjects at the Royal Academy and the British Institution between 1820 and 1847. He afterwards became better known as an art critic and writer, and published in 1841 ‘The Origin, Progress, and present Conditions of the Fine Arts in Great Britain and Ireland.’

Besides the works mentioned he was the author of ‘A Manual of Fresco and Encaustic Painting,’ 1843. He also published a translation of Mérimée's ‘Art of Painting in Oil and Fresco,’ 1839, and an abridged translation of the ‘Origin and Progress of the Penitentiary System in the United States,’ 1833, from the report of de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, which was well received (Athenæum, 1841, pp. 548, 573). His best known work, however, was his ‘History of Dublin University,’ which appeared in 1845, illustrated with coloured plates and with engravings. It contains biographical notices of many of the university alumni. Towards the close of his life he was curator of the St. Martin's Lane academy. He died on 23 Dec. 1850. 