has ingeniously shown, that the circumstances of the time encouraged a hope of a peaceful adjustment of political differences. The king was in the keeping of Cromwell, and the use of the Prayer Book was permitted; the army had assumed an attitude of hostility towards the Parliament; and the Independents were assailing the Presbyterians with virulence equal to their own. The early stages of seditious intemperance had not yet been inflamed into frenzy. Hall was only just driven from Norwich. It is quite in harmony with the disposition of Taylor to suppose, that he may have been desirous to impress upon the monarch and his advisers among the high church party, the paramount importance of meeting the demands of the Presbyterians in a conciliatory and liberal temper. Of the book itself, I shall have another opportunity of speaking. Its plan is extremely simple. Considering the Apostles' Creed to contain the elements of Christian truth, he regards every subsidiary doctrine as indifferent and dispensable. From this principle the argument spreads on every side into that luxuriant amplitude of learning and illustration, which, while it beautifies, so often overshades the vigour and massiveness of his teaching.

CHAPTER VII.

I. Lord Carbery protects Taylor; Golden Grove.—II. Beauty of the scenery; its influence on his writings. — III. Holy Living and Dying. IV. The Great Exemplar; its devotional spirit. V. His Sermons. — VI. Funeral Discourse on Lady Carbery; her character. - VII. Remark of Keble upon Taylor; compared with Burke. - VIII. The rhetorical and poetical mind contrasted.

GOD, was the beautiful and characteristic saying

of Taylor, places a watery cloud in the eye, that when the light of heaven shines on it, it may produce a rainbow to be a sacrament and a memorial, that God and the sons of men do not love to see a man perish. His own history was a prolonged illustration of the image. In all the sorrows and wearinesses of his dark journey, he was cheered by friends who seemed to be raised up to bless the persecuted pilgrim of the Cross. He had the courage as well as the patience of a hero. "When the north wind blows, and it rains sadly, none but fools sit down in it and cry; wise people defend themselves against it with a warm garment, a good fire, and a dry roof." Through every storm

1 Holy Living, ch. ii. sec. 6.

of difficulty and oppression he worked his way, climbing among the hills till a path opened before him, or some glimmering window guided him into hospitality and a shelter. Such a light streamed over his footsteps from the cheerful friendliness of Golden Grove, the seat of Lord Carbery, and situated in the same village in which his necessities had reduced his aspiring intellect to the drudgery of tuition. Among the

"Southern tracts of Cambria, deep embayed,

With green hills fenced, and ocean's murmurs lulled,”1

repose. The Bonney gives

it was singularly happy in its combination of
woody and pastoral fertility and
Towy flowed through the grounds.
a pleasing description of the place. Embracing the
rich sweep of the valley from Carmarthen to Llan-
dovery, Gronger Hill, about a mile and a half to
the north west, is a prominent feature in the
landscape. The whole scene lives in the panorama
of Dyer, with its streams, trees, and ruined castles.
Of these, Dynevor, once the residence of the Welsh
Princes, and Dryslwyn are visible from the windows
of the present mansion. Dyer has not forgotten to
notice the exquisite variety of foliage for which the
vale of Towy is remarkable.

"Below the trees unnumbered rise,
Beautiful in various dyes,

The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew;

1 Wordsworth.

The slender fir that taper grows,

The sturdy oak with broad spread boughs."

Dynevor Castle is shaded by oaks of extreme antiquity. The union of pastoral and baronial life composes a lovely picture. Taylor would not contemplate such a landscape without delight and gratitude. We possess, in his noblest book, an affecting transcript of his feelings:-"I am fallen into the hands of publicans and sequestrators, and they have taken all from me; what now? Let me look about me. They have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me; and I can still discourse, and unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience; they have still left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate. I can walk in my neighbour's pleasant fields, and see the variety of natural beauties, and delight in all that in which God delights—that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God himself. And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. Such a person were fit to bear Nero company in his funeral sorrow for the loss of one of Poppea's hairs, or help to mourn for Lesbia's sparrow: and because he loves

it, he deserves to starve in the midst of plenty, and to want comfort while he is encircled with blessings." "Let everything you see," he wrote at the same season, "represent to your spirit the excellency and the power of God, and let your conversation with the creatures lead you unto the Creator; and so shall your actions be done more frequently with an eye to God's presence, by your often seeing him in the glass of the creation. In the face of the sun you may see God's beauty; in the fire you may feel his heat warming; in the water his gentleness to refresh you; it is the dew of heaven that makes your field give you bread.”2

He followed the exhortation he gave. His writings at Golden Grove contain lovelier and more numerous specimens of rural description and picturesque embellishment, than could be gathered from his collective works. A beautiful example occurs in his argument to show how sickness is sanctified by the grace of God :—

"For so have I known the boisterous north wind pass through the yielding air, which opened its bosom, and appeased its violence, by entertaining it with easy compliance in all the regions of its reception. But when the same breath of heaven hath been checked with the stiffness of a tower, or the united strength of a wood, it grew mighty, and dwelt there, and made the highest branches stoop,

1 Holy Living, ch. ii. sec 6. Of Contentedness.
2 Ibid. ch. i. sec. 3.