ness inquire into your health, and the present condition of your affairs." And again--" Dear Sir, I pray let me hear from you as often as you can, for you will very much oblige me, if you will continue to love me still." These are the tender complaints of one who felt that he was neglected.

The apparent inattention of Evelyn may, in some degree, be explained by the circumstances of his position. The Restoration changed the current of his life, and involved him in the business, and some of the more harmless amusements, of the gayest carnival in Europe. The philosopher began to flutter into the courtier. In 1660, he was occupied by a task which the king imposed on him. Graver employment soon demanded more earnest application, In 1664, he was appointed a commissioner of the sick and wounded; his district included the ports between Dover and Portsmouth; and at one period his list contained three thousand Dutch prisoners. The labour of such an office could not have been slight, and it obliged him to visit London, when the plague had spread death in the houses and grass in the streets. But the heart of friendship may beat when its tongue is silent. Taylor would remember his own caution'- "Be sure to choose a friend whom you will never be able to hate; for though the society may justly be interrupted, yet love is an immortal thing." And the sight of Taylor's daughter, at a meeting of the Royal Society, drew

1 A Discourse on Friendship, p. 100. 1662.

from Evelyn a brief, but earnest sigh for "his late worthy and pious friend.”

Of a man who spent eighty-six years in a course of research, study, curiosity, instruction, and benevolence, it is not possible to speak without regard. His name quickened the fastidious languor of Walpole. He lived in times that heightened the expression of the intellectual features, and his figure occupies a place in the most picturesque and eventful scenes of our history. We behold him among the fiery cavaliers of Charles, and the dark puritans of Cromwell; in the brilliant festival of the Restoration; in the gloom of returning Romanism under James, and in the bloodless revolution of William. The life of Evelyn is an episode in the annals of five reigns. Known by men of all parties, and beloved by whomsoever he was known, he exerted the authority of his character to protect the oppressed; and prevailed upon the friend of a regicide to assist the chaplain of a martyr. Few eyes have beheld more mournful or brighter visions of persecution and bravery. He witnessed the ruin of the church, and the plunder of the priesthood; and as, in his manhood, he saw Taylor driven from his parsonage into a village school, and Laud from his palace to a block; so, in his age, he watched the departure of Ken from his cathedral, and Sancroft, grey with years and sanctity, retiring from Lambeth to a cottage-garden at Fresingfield.

In his protracted pilgrimage of fourscore years and six, the changes in literary taste were not less

remarkable than the fluctuations of public opinion. The magnificent system of eloquence which Taylor constructed, after passing through the fiery compression of Barrow, flowed with diminished richness into the smooth good sense of Tillotson. Beginning with Vandyck's august representations of knights, and Taylor's criticisms on Lucretius, he ended with requesting Burnet to sit for his portrait to Kneller, and talking over the supper-table to Dryden about his translation of Virgil.

The splendid rhetoric and various imagery of the House of Feasting, and the seraphic ardour of the author, had grown dim in his recollection, when, in 1695, he described Stanhope as one of the most accomplished preachers he ever heard, for matter, eloquence, action, and voice; and hailed the elevation to the Primacy of his "dear and worthy friend, Dr. Tenison." The age of heroic character was gone; the Apostolic crown emitted a fainter lustre; and the bustle of Burnet introduced the political school of theology.

Evelyn owes the prominence of his literary position not so much to his taste and attainments, as to his virtues and his friends. The benefactor of Taylor, the correspondent of Cowley, and the companion of Boyle, he inspired the Muses of eloquence, poetry, and science. Without genius, or the dazzling reflection of it which may be called the highest talent, he ranks among the most distinguished persons of the seventeenth century. He turned his face to the light of knowledge in every direction, and ex

amined, with equal interest, the travels of Chardin, the instruments of Flamsted, or the drawings of Wren. His classical scholarship was small; but he could read Plutarch, and enjoy Virgil: with the French, Italian, and Spanish languages he was sufficiently familiar. His love of art was lively, and his perception of its beauties not languid; whether gazing on the mild solemnity of Raffaelle, the lustrous truth of Titian, or the crowded magnificence of Tintoretto. What he did for the embellishment of our homes, who can walk in the melancholy gardens of old houses without remembering? But the pre-eminent charm of his character-that which has recommended it to every gentle and reflective heart, is its natural and earnest piety; sincere and affectionate as it is compassionate and tolerant ; not rejecting any decoration of literature, vapour though it be, which the ray of religious thought might warm and colour; nor regarding the refinements of taste and the curiosity of intellect as unfavourable to the reverential preservation, or the invigorating action of that holy Faith, which conducted him through the trials of earth into his mansion of glory.

CHAPTER XII.

I. Probable advantages of his preferment; his generosity to the poor, and patronage of deserving scholars-Bedell and Usher. II. Preaches a sermon at the funeral of Archbishop Bramhall; striking quotation from it. III. His Dissuasive from Popery characterised; Coleridge's remark. — IV. The health of Taylor declines; his illness and death. - V. The alleged violation of his remains disproved by the investigation of Bishop Mant; his monument. VI. Some notices of his family.

WITH

'H whatever sentiments the comparative neglect of Taylor may be regarded, it is not improbable that his happiness was increased by the scene of his promotion. Continuing to reside in. the neighbourhood of Portmore, where he had a house and farm, he was surrounded by the friends whom his lectureship at Lisburn had procured for him, and could repay the kindnesses they had formerly bestowed. When Sanderson was raised to the see of Lincoln, the visits of his old parishioners from Boothby Pannel always made his table joyful; and Taylor possessed a temper of equal hospitality and affection. No reader of his works will doubt that he dispensed his revenues with liberality and wisdom. He rebuilt the choir of the cathedral of