JOHN TAYLOR.

(Circa 1580-1664.)

John Taylor, "the water-poet," was born in Gloucestershire, of humble parents. He had an odd old schoolmaster, of whom he tells sundry jests, and with whom he says he advanced "from possum to posset," but " was there mired and could no further get." Leaving school, he was bound apprentice to a Thames waterman, at that time a thriving trade, and giving employment to more men than any other trade or calling in the metropolis. The prosperity of the occupation, when Taylor first entered upon it, was greatly enhanced by there being three playhouses open on the Surrey side of the river, besides the bear-baiting circus; so that all the Middlesex votaries of the bear and buskin, who would not go round by London Bridge, had to employ watermen to convey them to their Surrey entertainments. After a while, however, the trade fell off, in consequence, mainly, of the long peace under James I., which released thousands of watermen from their enforced sea-service; but partly in consequence of two of the Surrey playhouses removing into Middlesex, a proceeding at which the watermen were so disgusted, that they absolutely petitioned the king (1613) that the players might not be allowed to have a playhouse in London, nor within four miles of it, on the Middlesex side. This modest memorial, which was laid before the Commissioners of Suits by our water-poet in person, was, of course, rejected, though supported by worshipful Sir Francis Bacon, "who very worthily said, that so far forth as the public weal was to be regarded before pastimes, or a serviceable decaying multitude before a handful of particular men, a profit before pleasure, so far was our suit to be preferred before theirs ;" that is, the counter-memorial which had been presented by his majesty's players. The waterman's trade was still further damaged by the proclamations from time to time issued, requiring the gentry to reside during the greater part of the year on their own estates; and was undone, says Taylor, when hackney coaches came into use. The water-poet, however, cannot himself have been much engaged in Thames watermanship, for he was employed in no fewer than sixteen voyages in the queen's ships, and was in the expeditions under Essex at Cadiz and the Azores. It was probably in the leisure hours of these voyages that he laid in that store of reading for which he properly takes credit. The names of Ovid, Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Du Bartas, Plutarch, Josephus, Marcus Aurelius, Cornelius Agrippa, Seneca, Guevara, Montaigne, Suetonius, -in English forms,-of Chaucer, Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Nash, Fox, Holinshed, set forth in Taylor's account of his studies, prove

that he did, as he says,

care to get good books." Yet with all this store of acquired knowledge, his own productions were altogether original, being, as he says,

"No academical poetic strains,

But homespun medley of my motley brains."

The first of these lucubrations is entitled "Taylor's Water-Work ; or the Scullers Travels from Tyber to Thames; with his boat laden with a Hotch-potch, or Gallimaufrey of Sonnets, Satires, and Epigrams. With an ink-horn disputation betwixt a Lawyer and a Poet; and a quarterne of new-catched Epigrams, caught the last fishingtide; together with an addition of Pastoral Equivoques, or the Complaint of a Shepherd, dedicated to neither Monarch nor Miser, Keaser nor Caitiff, Palatine nor Plebeian, but to great Mounsier Multitude, alias All, or Every One."

His manner of publishing these productions, which were separately of small bulk, was to print them at his own cost, make presents of them, and await sweet guerdon from the recipients, from whom the smallest donations in return were thankfully received. James I. and Charles I. are both commemorated by our poet as having in this fashion "rewarded the barren gleanings of his poetical inventions." One of his patrons, Sir William Wade, did him, for the time, more substantial service by appointing him to the receivership of the Lieutenant of the Tower dues of "two black leathern bottles or bombards of wine" from every ship bringing that commodity into the river Thames; but he lost this situation after awhile, or rather would not pay the price at which, by a new arrangement, it was put up for sale. Poor Taylor, moreover, lost, somewhere about the same time, 100%., by reason of some surety-ship into which he had entered; he turns this loss, however, to pleasant account in his Navy of Ships and other Vessels that have art to sail by Land as well as by Sea.

Among other modes of making money, Taylor exercised his skill and courage as a sailor in several wagering adventures, that is to say, in bets that he would row, in his boat, from London to the continent, and back again, in a certain time. The bet won, money was next made out of the achievement by publishing an account of it in prose or verse; as, in 1616, we have "Taylor's Travels, three weeks, three days, and three hours observations, from London to Hamburg, in Germany, amongst Jews and Gentiles; with descriptions of Towns and Towers, Castles and Citadels, artificial Galloweses and natural Hangmen; dedicated for the present to the absent Odcombian knight errant, Sir Thomas Coriat, Great Britain's Error, and the World's Mirror." Another undertaking of his was to travel on foot from

London to Edinburgh, "not carrying any money to or fro, neither begging, borrowing, or asking meat, drink, or lodging." This undertaking, performed in 1618, was described in "The Pennyless Pilgrimage; or the Moneyless Perambulation of John Taylor, alias the King's Majesty's Water-Poet," one of the writer's most amusing productions. His reliance upon his reputation, and upon the hospitality of those whom he knew on the way, or whom he might become known to, was fully justified; for he ate, drank, and slept of the best all the way to and fro. "At Leith," says he, "I found my longapproved and assured good friend Master Benjamin Jonson, who gave me a piece of gold of two-and-twenty shillings to drink his health in England, and withal willed me to remember his kind commendation to all his friends." Making his way merrily back to London, our penniless peregrinator's friends came to meet him at Islington, at the sign of the Maidenhead, when, "with all love, he was entertained with much good cheer, and after supper they had a play of the Life and Death of Guy of Warwick, played by the Earl of Derby's men; and on next morning to his house in London," his wager won. He performed a similar journey, in 1620, to Prague, of which he, of course, published an account in prose and verse. The Queen of Bohemia gave him a gracious welcome to Prague, permitted him to dandle in his arms her youngest son, Prince Rupert, and gave him the infant's shoes as a memorial. Next year he "made a very merry wherry ferry voyage from London to York;" one of the incidents of which was, that he and his four men, being driven by stress of weather into Cromer, were seized as pirates, though at once released, and provided with corn and wine and lodging, when he made himself known. He does not appear, however, to have made so much money by these and similar enterprises as he expected, for he complains desperately of the "shifts and tricks and cavils of sharking fools," who had promised, but failed, to give him various sums—

"A crown, an angel, or a pound,

A noble, piece, or half piece-"

in a ludicrous poem, characteristically entitled The Scourge of Baseness, or Kicksey-Wicksey, or a Lerry-Come-Twang. His last adventure of this class was a desperate expedition from London to Queenborough, in a paper boat, with two stockfish tied to two canes for oars. The frame of this frail vessel was supported by eight large bladders, which came into essential use in half an hour after the departure from London Bridge, when, of course, the paper bottom fell to pieces. However, the wager was won; for Taylor, having started on the Saturday, reached Queenborough on the Monday morning.

A short epistle prefixed to Taylor's Revenge, or the Rymer William Fennor forckt, ferritted, and finally fetched over the coals, gives an account of a contest our poet had with this William Fennor, by reason of Fennor having failed to fulfil a challenge he had accepted to perform his part of an extempore drama, to be enacted by him and Taylor at the Hope Theatre.

When the rebellion broke out, Taylor withdrew to Oxford, opened an inn there, fired paper pellets at the Puritans, and made himself "much esteemed for his facetious company." When the royal cause was, for the time, ruined, Taylor returned to Westminster, and kept a public-house in Phoenix Alley, near Long Acre; after the king's death, he set up a Mourning Crown for his sign, but soon found it expedient to substitute his own portrait. When more than seventy years old, he proved the vigour of his body and mind by making a journey through Wales, and writing an account of it.

He died in 1654, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden.

RICHARD NICCOLS.

(Circa 1584.)

Richard Niccols was the offspring of respectable parents residing in London, where he was born towards 1584. When about twelve years of age, he embarked in a vessel called the " Ark," which sailed with the expedition against Cadiz, in June 1596, and was present at the great and complete victory obtained both by sea and land on that occasion. Whether this voyage was the result of boyish ardour, or that he was originally intended to be actively employed for his country, in either military or marine service, is not known. He appears on his return to have resumed his studies, and in 1602 was entered a student in Magdalen College, Oxford. He took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1606, and was then esteemed among the "ingenious persons of the University." In 1610 he impliedly says he should have continued the Mirrour for Magistrates further, if his own affairs had suffered him to proceed; but being called away by other employments, he of force left the completion to others. What those employments were, beyond that of a poet, is not known. In that character his talents are overrated by Headley, who considers him "a poet of great elegance and imagination." Niccols, on reprinting the Induction to the Mirrour, found the rhyme too perfect, and the language too polished, to allow the attempting any

of his supposed emendations; but towards the conclusion of the poem, he was bold enough to reject one stanza, and foist in four of his own composing; and it is to his credit that Warton, in analysing the whole, reprinted two of these as the genuine production of Sackville. Such a compliment cannot be exceeded. He published The Cuckow in 1607, and reprinted the Mirror for Magistrates in 1610, adding his own poems, The Fall of Princes, and A Winter Night's Vision. This vision was probably composed as long before as August 1603, when our author retired for safety to Greenwich, where wandering through the walks long favoured by Elizabeth, the circumstance of it being her natal place, combined with her then recent death, appears to have awakened his youthful muse to attempt this metrical history of her life. His other effusions were

The Three Sisters' Teares, shed at the late solemn funerals of the Royall deceased Henry Prince of Wales, &c. 1613.

Vertues Encomium; or, the Image of Honour. In two books of Epigrammes. 1614.

Monodia; or, Waltham's complaint upon the death of that most vertuous and noble ladie lately deceased, the Lady Honor Hay, &c. 1615.

London's Artillery, briefly containing the noble practise of that worthie So cietie, &c.

Sir Thomas Overbury's Vision.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

(1585-1649.)

William Drummond, a descendant of the ancient family of Drummond of Carnock, and the son of Sir John Drummond, was born at Hawthorndean, in Scotland, 13th December, 1585. He received his education at the University of Edinburgh, where he took the degree of M.A. At the age of twenty-one he went to France, and attended lectures on the civil law, a subject on which he left sufficient documents to prove that his judgment and proficiency were

uncommon.

After a residence abroad of nearly four years, he returned to Scotland in 1610, in which year his father died. Instead, however, of prosecuting the study of the law, as was expected, he thought himself sufficiently rich in the possession of his paternal estate, and devoted his time to the ancient classics, and the cultivation of his poetical genius. Whether he had composed or communicated any pieces to his friends before this period, is uncertain. It was after a recovery from a dangerous illness that he wrote a prose rhapsody, entitled Cypress Grove; and about the same time his Flowers of Zion, or