THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. WE CHAPTER I. FROM 1613 TO 1642. E have higher authority than that of human evidence for asserting, that the Church of Christ is firmly founded on a Rock. The attack of those who meditate its destruction, whether gradual and secret, or manifest and sudden, is as ineffectual as it is malignant. When assaulted either by infidelity, on the one side, or hypocrisy, on the other; when obscured by superstition or persecuted by force, its divine Protector has successively demonstrated the truth of his word, that, "wisdom is justified of her children."a Matth. 11. 19. At no point of time, since England first received the blessing of christianity, was this more strikingly displayed than in the age which succeeded the reformation. "Sons of Prophets" then arose, endued with such powers of mind, animated with such grace, and armed with such weapons of erudition, as to render them invincible to their present enemies, and the admiration of succeeding times. Amongst the foremost of these was JEREMY TAYLOR: a person who does not force himself into notice by an origin derived from noble ancestors, or raised above the ordinary level of mankind. On the contrary, he is found to have entered into life in the humblest walk of society, and to afford an illustrious example of learning and religion rising into notice and to honour by their intrinsic excellence. Jeremy, the son of Nathaniel and Mary Taylor, was born in the parish of the Holy * See Cole MSS. 5882. Art. 4. p. 90. in Brit. Mus. Taylor was not the eldest son, for his brother Nathaniel was baptized Dec. 8. 1611, two years earlier than himself. See Reg. of Trin. Parish. Camb. The place where their father is said to have resided at the time of Taylor's birth, is in the yard belonging to a large old house, known by the sign of the wrestlers, situate on the south side of the street called the Petty-Cury, and near St. Andrew's church. Trinity, in Cambridge, where his father followed the occupation of a barber: and was baptized on the 15th day of August, in the year of our Lord 1613. At three years of age he was sent to the free school in his native town, then newly founded under the will of Stephen Perse, M. D. late senior fellow of Gonvil and Caius college, and over which Mr. Lovering at that time presided. There he continued ten years, making such progress in learning as to render him worthy, at the age of thirteen, of being admitted at Caius College in the same university. He was entered a sizar on the 18th of August, in the year 1626, under Mr. Bachcroft; b Taylor must have been amongst the number of those pupils who first took advantage of Dr. Perse's endowment, as the doctor's will, under which the school was founded, is dated only on the 27th of September 1615. с Although the age at which Taylor is here stated to have entered the university be contradicted by the following abstract from the book of entrances at Caius College, the testimony of Bishop Rust is here preferred. It appears from the register of the parish that he was baptized August 15th 1613.- and by the college register that he was entered August 18th 1626, thirteen years after his baptism. The following is copied verbatim from the admittance book of Caius College. and was 'matriculated on the 17th of March following. The studies of the university were at this time improving. Bacon, some years before, had published his "Advancement of Learn 66 ing," which had been well received. His Novum Organum had enlarged the bounds of reason, and by directing the powers of the mind to higher objects, had stamped an ad postea Jeremias Tailor filius Nathanielis Tonsoris "Tailor Cantabrigiæ natus et ibidem literis instructus in Schola publica sub Mro. Lovering p' decennium anno ætatis suæ 15 admis-xijd Episc. D. sus est in Collegium nostrum Augusti 18° 1626 pauper Scholaris Fidejussore MÃo. Bachcroft. Solvit pro ingressu Tho. BACHCROFT." There is in this copy of his admission, a slight variation from his own usage in the mode of spelling his surname. In the autographs preserved in the parish register at Uppingham in Rutlandshire, and at the conclusion of his letters preserved in the British Museum, as well as at the end of his Epistles Dedicatory, he invariably writes himself Taylor; and this method is therefore adopted in the following pages. "Jeremias Taylor, Coll. Caii admissus in Matriculam acad. Cant. Mar. 17. 1626." i. e. 162. Regr. B. Baker's MSS. Vol. 34. P. 157. * See his letter to King James I. dated 12th Oct. 1620. |