prettinesse of your aboad, or so low an opinion of your prudence and piety, as to thinke you can be any wayes transported with them. I know the pleasure of them is gone off from their height before one month's possession; and that strangers, and seldome seers, feele the beauty of them more than you who dwell with them. I am pleased, indeed, at the order and the cleannesse of all your outward things; and look upon you not onely as a person, by way of thankfulnesse to God for his mercies and goodnesse to you, specially obliged to a great measure of piety, but also as one who, being freed in great degrees from secular cares and impediments, can, without excuse and allay, wholly intend what you so passionately desire, the service of God. But, now I am considering yours, and enumerating my owne pleasures, I cannot but adde that, though I could not choose but be delighted by seeing all about you, yet my delices were really in seeing you severe and unconcerned in these things, and now in finding your affections wholly a stranger to them, and to communicate with them no portion of your passion but such as is necessary to him that uses them or receives their ministries. S', I long truly to converse with you; for I doe not doubt but in those liberties we shall both goe bettered from each other. For your Lucretius, I perceive you have suffered the importunity of too kind friends to prevaile with you. I will not say to you that your Lucretius is as far distant from the severity of a Christian as the faire Ethiopian was from the duty of BP Heliodorus; for indeede it is nothing but what may become the labours of a Christian gentleman, those things onely abated which our evil age needes not; for which also I hope you either have by notes, or will by preface prepare a sufficient antidote: But since you are ingag'd in it, doe not neglect to adorne it, and take what care of it it can require or neede; for that neglect will be a reproofe of your own act, and looke as if you did it with an unsatisfied mind, and then you may make that to be wholly a sin, from which onely by prudence and charity you could before be advised to abstain. But, S', if you will give me leave, I will impose such a penance upon you for your publication of Lucretius, as shall neither displease God nor you; and since you are buisy in that which may minister directly to learning, and indirectly to error or the confidences of men, who of themselves are apt enough to hide their vices in irreligion, I know you will be willing, and will suffer your selfe to be intreated, to imploy the same pen in the glorifications of God, and the ministeries of eucharist and prayer. S', if you have M" Silhon de l'Immortalité de l'Ame, I desire you to lend it mee for a weeke; and believe that I am in great heartiness and dearenesse of affection, "" DEARE S', "Your obliged and most affectionate friend and servant, "JER. TAYLOR." The penance to which Taylor alludes in the close of this letter is more fully explained by him in the following passage of a letter, dated August, 23, 1656:- "I was once bold with you; I would faine be so once more. It is a thousand pitties but our English tongue should be enriched with a translation of all the sacred hymnes which are respersed in all the rituals and church bookes. I was thinking to have beg'd of you a translation of that well-knowne hymne, Dies iræ, dies illa, Solvet sêclum in favillà ;' which, if it were a little changed, would be an excellent divine song: but I am not willing to bring trouble to you; onely it is a thousand times to be lamented that the beaux esprits of England doe not think divine things to be worthy subjects for their poesy and spare houres." The next two extracts from two letters, dated the one July 19th, 1656, and the other Feb. 22d, 1657, show that in addition to the other trials which at this period pressed upon his spirit, he was called to contend with domestic bereavements, peculiarly severe-and prove with what noble and touching resignation he was enabled to bear himself under his Father's chastening hand. "DEARE SIR," he remarks in the one, "I am in some little disorder by reason of the death of a little child of mine, a boy that lately made us very glad: but now he rejoyces in his little orbe, while we thinke, and sigh, and long to be as safe as he is." "I know," he says in the other, 66 you will either excuse or acquit, or at least pardon mee that I have so long seemingly neglected to make a returne to your so kind and friendly letter; when I shall tell you that I have passed through a great cloud which hath wetted mee deeper than the skin. It hath pleased God to send the small poxe and feavers among my children; and I have, since I received your last, buried two sweet, hopeful boyes; and have now but one sonne left, whom I intend, if it please God, to bring up to London before Easter, and then I hope to waite upon you, and by your sweet conversation and other divertisements, if not to alleviate my sorrow, yet, at least, to entertain myself and keep me from too intense and actual thinkings of my trouble. Dear S', will you doe so much for mee as to beg my pardon of Mr Thurland, that I have yet made no returne to him for his so friendly letter and expressions. S', you see there is too much matter to make excuse; my sorrow will, at least, render me an object of every good man's pity and commiseration. But, for myself, I bless God, I have observed and felt so much mercy in this angry dispensation of God, that I am almost transported, I am sure, highly pleased with thinking how infinitely sweet his mercies are when his judgments are so gracious. S', there are many particulars in your letter which I would faine have answered; but, still, my little sadnesses intervene, and will yet suffer me to write nothing else: but that I beg your prayers, and that you will still own me to be, "Feb. 22, 1656-7." "DEARE AND HONURED SIR, "Your very affectionate friend and hearty servant, "JER. TAYLOR." The experience to which he had thus personally been called, both of the bitterness of domestic desolation, and of the power of the gospel to support and to console under the severest strokes of a bereaving providence, richly qualified him to act the part of a comforter to others under similar circumstances of darkness and distress. How well he discharged his duties in this kind will appear from the following beautiful letter of condolence, addressed to Evelyn, on the death of his sons Richard and George :— "TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. "DEARE SIR,-If dividing and sharing griefes were like the cutting of rivers, I dare say to you, you would find your streame much abated; for I account myselfe to have a great cause of sorrow, not onely in the diminution of the numbers of your joys and hopes, but in the losse of that pretty person, your strangely hopeful boy. I cannot tell all my owne sorrowes without adding to yours; and the causes of my real sadnesse in your losse are so just and so reasonable, that I can no otherwise comfort you but by telling you, that you have very great cause to mourne: so certaine it is that griefe does propagate as fire does. You have enkindled my funeral torch, and by joining mine to yours, I doe but encrease the flame. Hoc me malè urit,' is the best signification of my apprehension of your sad story. But, Sir, I cannot choose, but I must hold another and a brighter flame to you, it is already burning in your heart; and if I can but remove the darke side of the lanthorne, you have enoughe within you to warme yourselfe, and to shine to others. Remember, Sir, your two boyes are two bright starres, and their innocence is secured, and you shall never hear evil of them agayne. Their state is safe, and heaven is given to them upon very easy termes; nothing but to be borne and die. It will cost you more trouble to get where they are; and amongst other things one of the hardnesses will be, that you must overcome even this just and reasonable griefe; and, indeed, though the griefe hath but too reasonable a cause, yet it is much more reasonable that you master it. For besides that they are no losers, but you are the person that complaines, doe but consider what you would have suffer'd for their interest: you [would] have suffered them to goe from you, to be great princes in a strange country and if you can be content to suffer your owne inconvenience for their interest, you command [commend] your worthiest love, and the question of mourning is at an end. But you have said and done well, when you look upon it as a rod of God; and he that so smites here will spare hereafter and if you, by patience and submission, imprint the discipline upon your own flesh, you kill the cause, and make the effect very tolerable; because it is, in some sense, chosen, and therefore, in no sense, insufferable. Sir, if you doe not looke to it, time will snatch your honour from you, and reproach you for not effecting that by Christian philosophy which time will doe alone. And if you consider, that of the : : bravest men in the world, we find the seldomest stories of their children, and the apostles had none, and thousands of the worthiest persons, that sound most in story, died childlesse: you will find it is a rare act of Providence so to impose upon worthy men a necessity of perpetuating their names by worthy actions and discourses, governments and reasonings. If the breach be never repair'd, it is because God does not see it fitt to be; and if you will be of his mind, it will be much the better. But, Sir, you will pardon my zeale and passion for your comfort, I will readily confesse that you have no need of any discourse from me to comfort you. Sir, now you have an opportunity of serving God by passive graces; strive to be an example and a comfort to your lady, and by your wise counsel and comfort, stand in the breaches of your owne family, and make it appeare that you are more to her than ten sons. Sir, by the assistance of almighty God, I purpose to wait on you some time next weeke, that I may be a witnesse of your Christian courage and bravery; and that I may see, that God never displeases you, as long as the main stake is preserved, I meane your hopes and confidences of heaven. Sir, I shall pray for all that you can want, that is, some degrees of comfort and a present mind; and shall alwayes doe you honour, and faine also would doe you service, if it were in the power, as it is in the affections and desires of, Feb. 17, 1657-8. "DEAR SIR, "Your most affectionate and obliged friend and servant, "JER. TAYLOR." There is reason to believe that soon after this distressing series of domestic bereavements, and, perhaps, in consequence of the sorrowful recollections with which it had overhung the scene of his retreat in Wales, he removed to London, and officiated for some time to private congregations of those who still retained their attachment to the episcopal principles and ritual. In the year 1658, the earl of Conway, a nobleman of great property and influence in the north of Ireland, anxious to secure the benefit of Taylor's talents and exertions for the religious improvement of his neighbourhood in that country, made the proposal, through his friend Evelyn, of procuring for him an alternate lectureship in the borough of Lisburne, or as it was then called Lisnagarvy, with some other prospective advantages. Taylor felt so strongly the probable awkwardness and precariousness of such a situation under the then existing arrangement of ecclesiastical affairs, that he at first decidedly declined the appointment,assigning his reasons to the following effect, in a letter to Evelyn, dated May 12, 1658: "HONOUR'D SIR,-I returne you many thankes for your care of my temporal affaires : I wish I may be able to give you as good account of my watchfulnesse for your service, as you have of your diligence to doe me benefit. But concerning the thing itselfe, I am to give you this account. I like not the condition of being a lecturer under the dispose of another, nor to serve in my semicircle, where a Presbyterian and myselfe shall be like Castor and Pollux, the one up and the other downe; which, methinkes, is like the worshipping the sun, and making him the deity, that we may be religious halfe the yeare, and every night serve another interest. Sir, the stipend is so inconsiderable, it will not pay the charge and trouble of remooving my selfe and family. It is wholly arbitrary; for the triers may overthrow it; or the vicar may forbid it; or the subscribers may die, or grow weary, or poore, or be absent. I beseech you, Sir, pay my thankes to your friend, who had so much kindnesse for mee as to intend my benefitt: I thinke myselfe no lesse obliged to him and you than if I had accepted it." The fact, however, shows that these scruples, though of considerable weight, were eventually removed, and in the month of June he set out for Lisburne, bearing with him recommendations to the principal authorities, and a passport from Cromwell himself under his sign manual and privy seal. For the space of about two years he continued to discharge the duty of weekly lecturer at Lisburne, uninterrupted except by a menace of prosecution on behalf of the commonwealth, which was excited, however, entirely by private malice and envy, and which brought with it no more serious consequences than a journey to Dublin, in the depth of winter, in order to clear himself before the commissioners of government. His principal residence during these two years seems to have been at a house in the immediate neighbourhood of his patron's magnificent mansion of Portmore. The situation is described as having been of the most picturesque and beautiful description, and admirably congenial to those exercises of tranquil and contemplative devotion in which the mind of Jeremy Taylor found its sweetest soothing and repose. Lord Conway's park was bordered by two considerable and romantic lakes, Loch Neagh, and Loch Bag, (or the Little Lake), each studded with beautiful islets; to some one or other of which the tradition of the neighbourhood relates that our author was accustomed often to retire; and there, amidst the embowering foliage or under the pale shadow of the grey monastic ruins, to experience no doubt what the poet has with such pensive beauty described: |