TAYLOR, BAYARD, an American author and traveler, born at Kennett Square, Chester co., Penn., Jan. 11, 1825. Having received a common school education, he was appren ticed at 17 in a printing-office, when he began his poetical contributions to periodicals. In 1844 he published a volume of poems under the title of Ximena, and soon after started on a pedestrian tour of Europe, and in 1846 published Views Afoot, or Europe seen with a Knapsack and Staff. After his return he edited a country newspaper, then went to New York, and wrote for the Literary World and Tribune. Of the latter he became assistant-editor, and as its correspondent, made extensive travels in California and Mexico, recorded in El Dorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire, 1850; up the Nile to lat. 12° 30' n., and in Asia Minor, Syria, across Asia to India, China, and Japan— recorded in his Journey to Central Africa, Lands of the Saracen, and Visit to India, China, Loo-Choo, and Japan (1853). Later explorations are recorded in Northern Travel,
or Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark, and Lapland (1856); and Travels in Greece and Russia, with an Excursion to Crete (1857). In 1862-63 he was con nected with the embassy at St. Petersburg; and in 1874 he visited Iceland. He resided some years in Germany, and in 1878 was appointed United States ambassador at Berlin, where he died in Dec.,1878. In 1848 he published Rhymes of Travel, Balfads, and other Poems; Book of Romances, Lyrics, and Songs (1851); Poems of the Orient (1854); Poems of Home and Travel (1855); At Home and Abroad (1859-62); Hannah Thurston, a novel (1864); Beauty and the Beast, and The Masque of the Gods (1872); The Prophet, a Tragedy (1874); Home Pastorals, etc. (1875); Prince Deukalion. a drama (1878). He translated Faust in 1871, and for the last twelve years of his life was engaged upon a life of Goethe.