TAYLOR, BAYARD (1825-1878), American author, was born of English and German stock in Chester county (Pa.), on Jan. I 1,1825. He published at Philadelphia in 1844 a little volume, Ximena; or The Battle of the Sierra Morena, and Other Poems.
Remuneration for his poetry on a scale generous for the time and advance payments for travel letters by the publishers of the Saturday Evening Post and the editor of the United States Gazette, as well as a conditional engagement by Horace Greeley, made it possible for him to take (1844-46) the coveted trip to the Old World which was his university education. His study in Ger many and his happy roaming through Scotland, England, France and Italy are described in his Views Afoot (1846), which went through a number of editions. After a brief period of country journalism Taylor moved to New York city. The year 1848 brought him several lucrative magazine and newspaper offers, the most important of which was with the New York Tribune. The excitement of the gold rush at this period was responsible not only for his passionate Californian ballads but for his trip to the Pacific coast as correspondent for the Tribune, which he recounted in Eldorado (2 vols., 185o). The wanderlust was in his blood. His trips to almost every part of the globe continued till the end of his life, and, although the popularity of his narratives of travel has diminished, his vivid pictures of remote places, such as A Journey to Central Africa (1854) or Northern Travel (1857), in their day won many readers.
For several years his lectures were equally in demand. Quiet was afforded him in his country home, Cedarcroft, in which he entertained hospitably and read and wrote copiously. Some of the works of his later period are The Poit's Journal (1862), The Pic ture of St. John (1866) ; the translation of Faust (187o-71); Home Pastorals (1875) ; and the novels Hannah Thurston (1863), Joseph and His Friend (187o), and The Story of Kennett (1866). As a novelist Taylor is undistinguished; as a poet he is at his best in the Poems of the Orient (1854) or his rich and sonorous render ing of Faust in the original metres.
In 1862 Taylor had entered the diplomatic service as secretary of the legation at St. Petersburg, and in the following year he be came chargé d'affaires at the Russian capital. His disappointment at not being made minister there, which caused him to leave the service, was atoned for by his being made minister to Germany early in 1878. He died on Dec. 19, 1878.
Taylor's Studies in German Literature (1879) and Critical Essays and Literary Notes (188o) were published posthumously. Collected editions of his Poetical Works and of his Dramatic Works appeared in 1880. Besides co-operating with H. E. Scudder in the publication of the valuable Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor (1884), Mrs. Taylor wrote an interesting volume of reminiscence, On Two Continents (i9o5). A. H. Smyth has a good biography (1896), with bibliography.