The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Taylor, Bayard

TAYLOR, Bayard, an American author, born in Kennett Square, Chester co., Pa., Jan. 11, 1825. In 1842 he became an apprentice in a printing office in West Chester. In 1844-'5 he made a pedestrian tour in Europe, and after his return published “Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff” (1846). For a year he edited a newspaper in Phœnixville, Pa., then went to New York, wrote for the “Literary World,” and soon after became a member of the editorial staff of the “Tribune,” in which journal many of his subsequent works of travel first appeared. In 1849 he visited

California, and returned home by the way of Mexico. In 1851 he set out on a protracted tour in the East, in the course of which he ascended the Nile to lat. 12º 30' N., and afterward traversed large portions of Asia Minor, Syria, and Europe; and in the latter part of 1852 he made a new departure from England, crossing Asia to Calcutta, and thence proceeding to China, where he joined the expedition of Commodore Perry to Japan; and he afterward made several other journeys. In 1862-'3 he was secretary of legation at St. Petersburg, and part of the time chargé d'affaires. In 1874 he revisited Egypt, and attended the millennial celebration in Iceland, at which a poem by him was read, translated into Icelandic. At intervals he has appeared as a public lecturer, and has resided for several years in Germany. Besides his “Views Afoot,” he has published “El Dorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire” (2 vols. 12mo, 1850); “A Journey to Central Africa” (1854); “The Lands of the Saracen” (1854); “A Visit to India, China, and Japan” (1855); “Northern Travel: Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark, and Lapland” (London, 1857; New York, 1858); “Travels in Greece and Russia” (1859); “At Home and Abroad, a Sketch Book of Life, Scenery, and Men” (1859; 2d series, 1862); “Colorado, a Summer Trip” (1867); “By-Ways of Europe” (1869); and “Egypt and Iceland” (1874). His volumes of poems are: “Ximena, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena, and other Poems” (Philadelphia, 1844); “Rhymes of Travel, Ballads, and other Poems” (1848); “The American Legend,” a poem delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa society of Harvard university (1850); “Book of Romances, Lyrics, and Songs” (1851); “Poems and Ballads” (1854); “Poems of the Orient” (1855); “Poems of Home and Travel,” a selection from his early lyrics (Boston, 1855); “The Poet's Journal” (1862); “The Picture of St. John” (1866); “The Ballad of Abraham Lincoln” (1869); “The Masque of the Gods” (1872); “Lars, a Pastoral of Norway” (1873); “The Prophet, a Tragedy” (1874); and “Home Pastorals, Ballads, and Lyrics” (1875). He has also published the novels “Hannah Thurston, a Story of American Life” (1863), “John Godfrey's Fortunes” (1864), “The Story of Kennett” (1866), and “Joseph and his Friend” (1870). He has translated in the original metres both parts of Goethe's “Faust” (1870-'71), and has edited a “Cyclopædia of Modern Travel” (Cincinnati, 1856), “Frithiof's Saga,” translated by W. L. Blackley from the Swedish of Tegnér (1867), Auerbach's “Villa on the Rhine” (2 vols., 1869), and “Illustrated Library of Travel, Exploration, and Adventure” (vols. i.-iv., 1872-'4). Several of his works have been translated into German, French, and Russian. Since 1872 he has been engaged upon a combined biography of Goethe and Schiller.