TAYLOR, JEREMY (1613-67). An English prelate and author. He was born at Cambridge, the son of a barber, and educated at Caius Col lege. He was ordained before he had reached his twenty-first year, and attracted the atten tion of Laud, who procured him a fellowship at All Souls', Oxford. About the same time he was made chaplain to the King, and in 1638 rector of Uppingham. His first notable publication was Episcopacy Asserted (1642). His stand on the Church-and-King side cost him his living. For a while he accompanied the royal army, and then retired into Wales, where he opened a school at Newton in Carmarthenshire. During the thirteen years of Ids enforced seclusion, he pro duced his most memorable works—the Liberty of Prophesying, on behalf of the expelled Anglican clergy, in 1647; the Life of Christ and the Holy Living in 1649; the Holy Dying in 1652; and a number of other devotional a'nd controversial books. In 1660, with a dedication to Charles II., appeared his Duetor Dubitantium, or the Rule of Conscience in Her General Measures, the most learned, subtle, and curious of all his works. Promotion was a matter of course to one who was at once a stanch royalist, a profound theologian, and a consummate writer; and before the year was out lie was made Bishop of Down and Con nor. He was not happy in his Irish see, from
which he prayed to be delivered as from 'a place of torment.' The Scotch Presbyterian ministers who had occupied the livings under the Common wealth disputed his belief in the invalidity of their ordination, and were only ejected with difficulty. He remained at his post, however, un til his death. Taylor, sometimes styled the Eng lish Chrysostom on account of his golden elo quence. has few equals for richness of fancy. His inexhaustible imagery, full of tender beauty, touched with the characteristic melancholy of the age, reminds us of Shakespeare and Spenser and Fletcher rather than of a sober theologian. With Sir Thomas Browne, he is the best repre sentative of the ornate and florid prose of the seventeenth century. His style is perhaps seen at its best in his sermons, though his Holy Liv ing and Holy Dying, for their deep and practical piety, have been popular devotional manuals for each generation since his time. The best com plete edition of his works is that by Eden in ten vols. (London, 1847-52), with a memoir by Bishop ileber, revised by the editor. Consult also the essay by Dow-den, in Puritan and Angli can (London, 1900).