Much of his best work was produced at Golden Grove. In 1646 appeared his famous plea for toleration, 0EoXcryta'EKX€Kruci, A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying. In 1649 he pub lished the complete edition of his Apology for authorized and set forms of Liturgy against the Pretence of the Spirit, as well as his Great Exemplar . . . a History of . . . Jesus Christ, a book which was inspired, its author tells us, by his earlier inter course with the earl of Northampton. Then followed in rapid succession the Twenty-seven Sermons (1651), "for the summer half-year," and the Twenty-five (1653), "for the winter half year," The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (165o), The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (1651), a controversial treatise on The Real Presence . . . the Golden Grove; or a Manuall of daily prayers and letanies . . . (1655), and the Unum Neces sarium (1655), which brought upon him the accusation of Pelag ianism. In reply to a request from Katherine Phillips (the "matchless Orinda"), he wrote his Discourse of the Nature, Offices and Measures of Friendship (1657). His Ductor Dubitan tium, or the Rule of Conscience . . . (166o) was intended to be a standard manual of casuistry and ethics for Christian people.
He probably left Wales in 1657, and his immediate connection with Golden Grove seems to have ceased two years earlier. In 1658, through the kind offices of his friend John Evelyn, Taylor was offered a lectureship in Lisburn, Ireland, by Edward Con way, second Viscount Conway. At first he declined a post in which the duty was to be shared with a Presbyterian, or, as he expressed it, "where a Presbyterian and myself shall be like Castor and Pollux, the one up and the other down," and to which also a very meagre salary was attached. He was, however, in duced to take it, and found in his patron's mansion at Portmore, on Lough Neagh, a congenial retreat.
At the Restoration, instead of being recalled to England, as he probably expected and certainly desired, he was appointed to the see of Down and Connor, to which was shortly added the small adjacent diocese of Dromore. He was also made a member of the Irish privy council and vice-chancellor of the university of Dublin. None of these honours were sinecures. Of the uni versity he writes, "I found all things in a perfect disorder . . . a heap of men and boys, but no body of a college, no one member, either fellow or scholar, having any legal title to his place, but thrust in by tyranny or chance." Accordingly he set himself vigorously to the task of framing and enforcing regulations f or the admission and conduct of members of the university, and also of establishing lectureships. His episcopal labours were still more arduous. There were, at the date of the Restoration, about seventy Presbyterian ministers in the north of Ireland, and most of these were from the west of Scotland, and hated episcopacy.
The new bishop had nothing to offer the Presbyterian clergy but the bare alternative—submission to episcopal ordination and jur isdiction or deprivation. Consequently, in his first visitation, he declared thirty-six churches vacant; and of these forcible pos session was taken by his orders. At the same time many of the gentry were won by his undoubted sincerity and devotedness as well as by his eloquence. With the Roman Catholic population he had no success. At the instance of the Irish bishops Taylor undertook his last great work, the Dissuasive from Popery (in two parts, 1664 and 1667), but, as he himself seemed partly conscious, he might have more effectually gained his end by adopting the methods of Ussher and Bedell, and inducing his clergy to ac quire the Irish tongue. He died at Lisburn on Aug. 13, 1667 and was buried in the cathedral of Dromore.
Of a genuine poetic temperament, fervid and mobile in feeling, and of a prolific fancy, Taylor had also the sense and wit that come of varied contact with men. All his gifts were made avail able for influencing other men by his easy command of a style rarely matched in dignity and colour. With all the majesty and stately elaboration and musical rhythm of Milton's finest prose, Taylor's style is relieved and brightened by an astonishing variety of felicitous illustrations, ranging from the most homely and terse to the most dignified and elaborate.
The whole works of . . . Jeremy Taylor with a life of the author and a critical examination of his writings was published by Bishop Reginald Heber in 1822, reissued after careful revision by Charles Page Eden (1847-54). His most popular works, The Liberty of Prophesying, Holy Living, and Holy Dying have been often reprinted. The Poems and Verse-translations of Jeremy Taylor were edited by Dr. A. B. Grosart in vol. i. of the Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library (1870). The first biographer of Jeremy Taylor was his friend and successor, George Rust, who preached a funeral sermon (in i668) which remains a valuable document. His life has been written by John Wheeldon (1793), H. K. Bonney (1815), T. S. Hughes (1831), R. H. Willmott (1847), George L. Duyckinck (New York, 186o) and by Edmund Gosse (1904) in the "English Men of Letters" series. The chief authority is still Eden's revision of Bishop Heber's memoir, which includes much valuable correspondence. S. T. Coleridge was a diligent student and a warm admirer of Jeremy Taylor, whom he regarded as one of the great masters of English style. A series of comments by Coleridge are collected in his Literary Remains (1838, vol. iii., pp. 203-390).