Eternal Spirit "who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to enrich and purify the lips of whom he pleases."

The comparison may be aptly extended to their lives; their paths were equally chequered. If Milton escaped some of the harsher afflictions of Taylor; -if penury and danger did not haunt his pleasant garden-house in Aldersgate-street, a sadder visitation was sent to chasten and try him. And while the philosopher could walk in his neighbour's pleasant fields,

-When morn

Purples the East,

or gaze on the sun, setting behind the trees of Grongar Hill, the poet was encompassed by darkness and solitude, and lifted his eyes in vain to the returning

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,

Or light of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,—

The work of Taylor appeared in the triumph, that of Milton, in the overthrow, of his party. The temper of the age was alike unfavourable to bothSprat was to become the model of our prose, and Waller, the critic of our poetry. Where could Taylor or Milton look for immediate sympathy and applause? It was Bacon reading his Essays on the Boulevards, or Raffaelle exhibiting the Transfiguration in Alsatia.

The pen of Taylor did not sleep. This elaborate contribution to casuistical philosophy was followed, after an interval of only two months, by "The Worthy

Communicant," in which he unfolds the blessings to be derived from the holy receiving of the Lord's Supper, and supplies the minister with directions in difficult cases of conscience. The style breathes much of the warmth and fancy of his earlier writings; as in the remarkable illustration of the Sacramental mystery, which, like a doctrine of philosophy, has been "made intricate by explications, and difficult by the aperture and dissolution of distinctions. So we sometimes espy a bright cloud formed into an irregular figure; which, it is observed by unskilful and fantastic travellers, looks like a centaur to some, and as a castle to others; some tell that they saw an army with banners, and it signifies war; but another, wiser than his fellows, says it looks like a flock of sheep, and foretells plenty; and all the while it is nothing but a shiningcloud, by its own mobility and the activity of a wind cast into a contingent and artificial shape; so it is in this great mystery of our religion, in which some espy strange things which God intended not; and others see not what God hath plainly told."

The funeral sermon for Sir George Dalston is included in the volume. Although not deficient in the author's usual animation and beauty of language and sentiment, it is inferior to his discourse on Lady Carbery, and, perhaps, to Donne's affecting character of Sir William Cokayne, in which the description of the fleetingness of human grandeur is

1 Preached Dec. 12, 1626.

1

JER. TAY.

particularly striking. "Consider the greatest bodies upon earth, the monarchies, objects which one would think destiny might stand and stare at, but not shake; consider the smallest bodies upon earth, the hairs of our head, objects which one would think destiny would not, or could not discern. And yet destiny (to speak to a natural man,) and God (to speak to a Christian,) is no more troubled to make a monarchy ruinous, than to make a hair grey." Our literature presents no antithesis of thought more distinct or forcible.

CHAPTER XI.

his

I. Taylor is nominated to the See of Down and Connor; powerful claims-Usher, Hall, Hammond, Fuller, and Sanderson. II. Lord Carbery made President of Wales. -Butler.-III. Consecration of the Bishops in St. Patrick's Cathedral; Taylor preaches the Sermon. IV. Troubled state of his diocese; its gradual improvement. — V. Termination of his correspondence with Evelyn; attempt to account for it. — VI. Sketch of Evelyn; his talents and virtues.

TH

THE learned ingenuity of the casuist offered no charms to the ear of a monarch, who admired the wit of Etheridge and the licence of Buckingham. But Taylor's services and sufferings could not be passed over; and accordingly, on the 6th of August, 1660, we find him nominated to the see of Down and Connor. It might have been anticipated that a person so eminent and so honoured would have been retained in the country of his birth, which he had illuminated, in the darkest weather, by his piety and eloquence. If loyalty never tarnished, and sanctity never violated, could have pleaded in his cause, the appeal must have been irresistible. Among many faithless, ever faithful, no temptation of self-interest had allured him into the suburbs of revolutionism. The purity of his writings was

reflected in his life. Who among his contemporaries could prefer an equal claim? Hall, the imaginative and devout, and Usher, the sagacious and learned, in the same year were called to their crown, without beholding even the faintest dawn of the approaching renovation of that church, which they defended by their talents, and beautified by their lives. Hammond and Fuller enjoyed a clearer prospect; they perished in the hour of victory; henceforward to be numbered with the chosen worthies of England. Of the mighty men of old, Sanderson alone remained, bending under the burden of threescore and thirteen years. His name is endeared to our hearts by the sweetest devotion; and a painter might seek in vain for a happier subject than the Christian scholar in his sad-coloured dress, talking to Isaac Walton under a pent-house, in a shower of rain. But he possessed neither the vigour nor the capacity for business of Taylor. The king's adviser, in his ecclesiastical arrangements, is known to have been Sheldon, formerly Warden of All Souls', but then elevated to the Province of Canterbury. By his interest and persuasion, Sanderson received the diocese of Lincoln. Fuller styles him the "chief trustee" in recommending candidates for the vacant sees. We are

not informed whether the destination of Taylor ought to be attributed to his suggestion. But if the king had any knowledge of Taylor's marriage with his natural sister, we may conclude, with Heber, that he would have readily removed to a distance