Contents
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Memoir of the late Charles
Taylor
From the introduction to Calmet's Dictionary of the Holy
Bible, sixth edition, 1837
By Isaac Taylor of
Stanford Rivers
EVEN during his life it was pretty well known to the public, as well as
to the immediate circle of his friends, that Mr Taylor, although
accustomed to speak of himself as only the publisher of Calmet, or as
the engraver of the plates, was in truth the editor of the work, and
the author of the Dissertations,
or Fragments,
which it included. Since his death this fact has been generally
understood. To attempt to divine the motives of the pertinacious and
somewhat singular concealment by which he retreated from his
well-earned fame would be fruitless. That concealment has, however,
been long broken up, and it is now felt by the proprietors of
the work to be an act of justice to the memory of the learned and
highly gifted author, not merely to affix his name to his productions,
but to communicate some notices of his personal history; and it is
believed, too, that in doing so they shall meet the wishes of the
learned world, and of the public at large. In truth the public has a
claim to be put in possession of so eminent and instructive an example
of energy of mind in achieving the most arduous labours, and when
deprived of certain advantages usually deemed indispensable to success
in a course like that to which the editor of Calmet devoted his life.
It might be said that Mr Taylor inherited the energy that vanquishes
peculiar difficulty from his father, Isaac Taylor, a name familiar to
those who are versed in the history of the English fine arts. The
father of the editor of Calmet was the son of a brassfounder at
Worcester; and he at an early age, impelled by an
unconquerable passion for the arts, abandoned the business to which
he had been trained, and came to London, there at once to
learn and to practise line engraving, a taste for which was then
beginning to appear in England. This branch of art was at that time —
the early part of the last century,
professed by few except Frenchmen and Italians; and altogether
self-taught as he was, and very deficient in preliminary
accomplishments, yet by no means wanting in artistical feeling and
zeal, Isaac Taylor found it an arduous task to compete with these
foreign artists whose ample advantages placed them at once on a higher
stage of excellence. Nevertheless, he actually accomplished enough to
give him an honourable place in the ranks of early English art; and may
be said to have led the way in forming that style of engraving for the
decoration of books, which has since, and in this country especially,
reached an exquisite perfection.
He married (1754) Sarah Hackshaw Jefferys, daughter of Mr Josiah
Jefferys, of Shenfield, Essex, where, for a short time after
his marriage, he resided. Charles, the eldest of their three
sons, was born February 1, 1756, in a house adjoining the town of
Brentwood, though situate in the parish of Shenfield. In about a year
afterwards, Mr. Taylor removed to London, where he followed his
profession as an engraver. In the neighbourhood of his father's
residence, Charles, together with his two brothers, the late Rev Isaac
Taylor of Ongar, and the late Josiah Taylor, Esq of Stockwell, received
a common education; but he, and they also, subsequently enjoyed greater
advantages at a school in Lothbury. Yet this course of
instruction fell short of what might deserve to be called a
classical education. The actual extent of the acquirements made at
school by Charles is not known, but it is certain that, besides
obtaining a ready command of the French language, he made some
proficiency in the Latin. It does not, however, seem that at school he
entered upon the study of Greek.
On completing his fifteenth year, Charles was articled to his father,
as an engraver, and proved himself to possess a fair measure of that
zest for the arts without which the very peculiar difficulties of line
engraving are not to be surmounted. Yet his burin, although it
displayed much intelligence and accuracy, did not command that freedom,
grace, and delicacy which are necessary to impart a charm to this style
of art. It should however be noticed, in passing, that the technical
knowledge and the executive skill which he acquired in early life
afforded him the most important aid in carrying on and in
superintending the graphic portion of his Biblical works; and not only
did he become qualified to superintend the engravings which illustrate
the dictionary, and which form so valuable an adjunct of it, but his
professional knowledge and taste led him upon a field of
research peculiarly rich in the materials of Biblical elucidation, and
yet heretofore scarcely at all explored by Biblical critics. The
intelligent reader of the Fragments
is continually discerning instances of the technical sagacity and
professional lore of the artist-Scholar.
At the time when Charles Taylor was in his fourteenth year, his father
took the shop and stock of a bookseller in Holborn, and his access to
the various works which constituted this stock proved of the most
important consequence in determining his future course of study.
Already insatiable in the acquirement of knowledge, an, by
constitutin, a devourer of books, he now found the means of largely
gratifying his taste, and in a short time made himself familiar with
whatever, in all lines of literature, was the most valuable.
His memory was of a singularly excellent quality — at once comprehensive, retentive, exact,
and ready. To the end of life he could recall, at the demand of the
immediate occasion, whatever he had at any time read, and could turn,
without loss of time, to the book and page, where what he wished to
refer to was to be found. As an instance of the
compass and retentiveness of his memory, it has been mentioned that he
has been known, frequently, to repea; at the distance of several years,
the most minute particulars of naval engagement — the
names of commanders, the
number of guns, and the number of killed and wounded — as
reported in the newspapers of the day.
Among the books upon the shelves in his father's shop, was Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible,
(French) and very soon after he had become acquainted with this work,
that is to say, while he was yet in his seventeenth year, he was heard
to express, not only his admiration or it, but the desire he had
conceived of republishing it with additions and corrections. This
desire had ripened into a deliberately formed plan before Charles
Taylor reached his twentieth year; and it is believed that he soon
afterwards actually commenced the collection of materials with a view
to the accomplishment of his design. During his apprenticeship he had
availed himself of the privilege, enjoyed by the members of the Society
of Artists, of which his father was for some time secretary, of drawing
from the marbles in the collection of the Duke of Richmond; and there,
as it is probable, he not only improved his taste and hand as an
artist, but enlarged his acquaintance with antiquarian lore.
When he came of age in the year 1777, he married Miss Mary Forrest,
then residing with her uncle,
who was Chaplain of the Tower: she, as
well as a son and two daughters,
still survives him. Immediately after
his marriage Mr Taylor set out for Paris, then the principal school of
engraving in Europe, with the view of accomplishing himself in his
profession.
To what extent he might avail himself of the means of general
information so richly afforded by the French capital before the
Revolution, is not distinctly known. During his stay abroad,
which lasted a year, he addressed some letters to his friends, which
appeared in the pages of the British Miscellany,
and which attest his having frequented the King's Library. On his
return from France, Mr Charles Taylor adopted the course, then usual
with engravers, of executing ornamental prints on his own account.
These engravings were, for the most part, after pictures by Smirke and
Angelica Kauffmann. In
the memorable year of tumult and outrage, 1780,
Mr Taylor's house was involved in the conflagration which destroyed
Langdale's
distillery. He then took a house in Holborn, where he
entered upon a style of publication in which art and literature were
combined. The first of these works was entitled The Artist's Repository — a miscellaneous collection, embellished
with engravings, and which met with considerable success. It was
followed by the Cabinet
of Genius, Surveys
of Nature, and some similar compilations,
adapted to the
taste of the times, and which gave him occupation, both as author and
as superintendent of engravings. The authorship of these works passed
under the assumed name of Francis Fitzgerald. While thus engaged, the
higher energies of his mind were directed towards his favourite
objects, and all his leisure was given to the preparatory labour of
collecting materials for the biblical work which had so long been
present to his thoughts.
Removing some time afterwards to a commodious house in Hatton Garden,
he there received under his care the books of the London
Library, which remained with him during several years. This
circumstance afforded to Mr Taylor very important facilities for
prosecuting his design, and he soon after commenced the republication
of Calmet's
Dictionary, accompanied by miscellaneous dissertations,
under the title of Fragments,
and illustrated by very numerous engravings, many of which were derived
from sources heretofore little, or not at all known to biblical
scholars.
The general opinion of the learned world has assigned a very high rank
to this work, both in its editorial and original departments; nor can
it be here necessary, or proper; to insist upon its merits. Having now
fairly entered upon.the course he had so long and so wistfully
contemplated, Mr Taylor directed all the energies of his mind — a mind singularly active and vigorous,
to the multifarious objects it brought before him. Nothing within the
range of recondite or of modern literature, nothing that offered itself
to his personal observation, escaped his notice or failed to furnish
whatever it might possess that was available to the purposes of
biblical elucidation; and his tact in seizing upon illustrative facts
was eminently prompt and felicitous. The scriptures, in every
narrative, in every allusion, in every idiomatic phrase, were
perpetually present to his recollection; and that quick perception of
analogy, which may be named as the distinguishing quality of
his mental conformation, enabled him to gather pertinent instances, as
well from common life as from the resources of study. Perhaps
he hardly for a moment lost sight of the great object of his
intellectual existence — the illustration
of the inspired writings.
Mr Taylor explored, with indefatigable ardour, the fields of Jewish and
oriental literature and made himself instantly acquainted with every
new work relating to the East, meanwhile not neglecting the more usual
sources of biblical learning. In prosecuting these studies through a
course of years, he had insensibly made himself master —
rather by habit, and by a singular
intellectual aptitude than by any formal process of acquisition, of the
several learned languages, and of three or four of those of modern
Europe. Indeed, so excellent was his memory, and so penetrating and
instantaneous his perception of philological analogies, that
difficulties of this kind, which to ordinary minds appear formidable,
or even prove insurmountable, seldom obstructed his progress; and in
fact he availed himself readily of whatever, in any language, might
subserve his purpose. To that finished and universal acquaintance with
the Greek language, which belongs to perfect scholarship, and which is
seldom or never found apart from the advantage of an early and thorough
initiation, he did not make pretensions. Nevertheless it is probable
that there were some who, while they might be more accurately versed
than himself in classical learning, would have found themselves
decisively his inferiors in the ready and available familiarity with
Latin and Greek, and who might have failed to keep pace with him in his
rapid explications of the perplexities of an obscure passage.
Perspicacity, extent, and variety of information, ingenuity of
conjecture, and readiness of recollection, often gave him the clue
which a merely grammatical proficiency would not have presented.
The new edition of Calmet's
Dictionary,
quickly attracted the notice
and favour of the learned world; and the work obtained a much more
extensive sale than might have been anticipated, considering its
costliness, and the recondite subjects which it embraces. Inquiries
were eagerly made with a view to discover the learned, but anonymous
editor; and in some instances these inquiries came from persons high in
station in the church, as well as from many whose literary reputation
gave importance to the opinion they expressed. Mr Taylor nevertheless
adhered to his purpose of concealment, and would allow himself to be
spoken of only as the publishe. of the work, an. the engraver
of
the plates.
A demand for a second edition of the Calmet soon afforded him the
opportunity of revising and extending his labours; of which
opportunity he availed himself with unsparing assiduity: indeed, the
work of revision for successive reprints occupied Mr Taylor more or
less fully during the remainder of his life; and he lived to review the
last sheets of a fourth edition. Nevertheless this great work did not
exclusively engage his time and attention, for during the same
period he took a part in more than one of the periodical publications
of the time, either as editor or as a stated and principal
contributor. Of these engagements the most important was that
which he had with the Literary Panorama,
a work that obtained, for
some time, a considerable portion of public favour, and especially on
account of the ability displayed in its articles on questions of
political economy and state policy; and which, for the most part, were
furnished by Mr Taylor. These papers, whether right or wrong in
principle, gave proof of an extensive and exact knowledge of the
subjects treated, and at the same time exhibited the characteristic
sagacity and ingenuity which, in all cases, distinguished his
productions.
Accidental circumstances led Mr Taylor to engage in the controversy on
the subject of baptism, a subject in relation to which he
could not
fail to bring into play his peculiar talents and acquirements since it
belongs fully as much to the province of antiquarian research as to
that of theological discussion; and it is one that eminently invites
the specific mode of elucidation of which he was so perfect a master.
He brought to bear upon the inquiry, at once, the ready and
copious stores of his various learning, and his accustomed methods of
graphic illustration. The result of his investigations appeared in a
pamphlet entitled, Facts and Evidences on the
Subject of Baptism, and
was followed by Replies
to the strictures which it drew from the
leaders of the Baptist denomination. It is to be regretted that the
ingenious reasonings, and the conclusive facts brought together in
these publications, have not been presented to the public in a
condensed form, apart from the irrelevances with which, in the first
instance, they were mingled, and which tend much more to weaken the
force of the argument than either to enliven or to illustrate the
controversy. The laborious researches into which Mr Taylor was led in
the prosecution of the baptismal question, while at the same time he
could allow himself no remission of his usual and arduous engagements,
are believed to have given the first shock to his singularly vigorous
constitution, which otherwise seemed likely to retain its uncommon
energy to an extreme age. But when
once the physical powers have given way under excessive and
long-continued mental labour, it is not often that even the utmost care
and forbearance avail to retrieve the mischief; much less can that
mischief be remedied when the very same labours are persisted in, or
when only an occasional remission of the daily — and the
nightly —
task is allowed. The delicacy of health induced by his various.
literary engagements displayed itself in an asthmatic affection,
which, after two or three years of suffering, terminated his life
while his mental powers were still in their full vigour. He died
November 13, 1823, being then in his sixty-eighth year.
Mr Taylor's habits and appearance were characteristically those of a
literary man, and of one rather of the past than of the
present age. The incessant activity of his mind prevented his taking
his part in the customary relaxations of common life, and
placed him too little at variance with certain conventional modes of
society. Nevertheless he was at all times bland and communicative when
actually drawn into company; nor was he ever so absorbed in his own
meditations as to become unobservant of what was passing before him.
On the contrary, his eagle eye fixed itself upon the minutest
objects that seemed in any way to invite intelligent curiosity. He saw,
and noted, and analysed every thing; and drew from every source
conjectures, or inductions, and whatever he so gathered went to augment
the stores that were held at command for promoting the great and
favourite object of his life. Intellectual habits of this kind cannot
fail to render a man who reads largely, and who at the same time lives
in the world, extensively informed, and in fact there were very few,
if
any subjects, whether of philosophy, history, literature, or politics,
with which Mr Taylor was not more or less familiar; while, within his
peculiar sphere he might well have put in his claim to the reputation
of profound learning. Had he been disengaged from the
mercantile toils and cares of publication, and had he, early in his
course, thrown aside the many and capital disadvantages unavoidably
attendant upon literary concealment — had he admitted
the fame which
in fact, through life, courted him, he would no doubt have occupied,
not only a high, but a prominent place among the accomplished and
gifted men of his times.
Mr Taylor was, by education and habit, and by personal conviction too
(on certain points) a dissenter, and he was for many years a member of
the religious society assembling in the Old Meeting House, Fetter Lane.
It ought, however, to be added that his sentiments towards the
Established Church, with many of the clergy of which he lived on terms
of cordial friendship, were as far as possible from being of a hostile
or a jealous kind. His theological opinions were (to use the stated
phrases) decidedly orthodox and evangelical. This fact deserves the
more to be noticed, not merely because the peculiar species of
intellectual labour to which his life was devoted is not seldom seen to
produce a chilling and unfavourable influence upon religious belief,
but because the native tendency of his mind was towards that mode of
ingenious explication which has actually seduced some minds of great
talent and attainments, into the paths of heretical speculation. It is
not affirmed that he did not himself occasionally venture too far in
the dim region of plausible conjecture; but such conjectures or
hypotheses never led him to involve in doubt the great principles of
Christian faith; and although, in particular instances, his theoretic
explications may be thought reprehensible, every candid and competent
student of Holy Scripture will acknowledge that, when his labours are
viewed comprehensively, the editor of Calmet has, in a signal manner,
promoted the cause of sacred truth; and it is certain that
to do
so was
his most ardent and invariable desire.
IT
STANFORD RIVERS,
February 15, 1836
Notes
1.
Isaac
Taylor of Stanford Rivers (1787-1865) was a grandson of
Charles Taylor's brother Isaac (1759-1829).
2. Cornelius Humphreys,
born about 1711, Llanelli, Wales, died at the Tower of London, 1770,
matriculated from Jesus College, Oxford, in 1743, was
minister of
a chapel at the Tower of London from 1740 to 1770.
3. Charles Taylor
(1780-1856), artist and bookseller; Mary Taylor (1782-1866) and Sarah
Taylor (1785-1874).
4. Robert Smirke was a
historical painter and book illustrator from Wigton
in West Cumbria. He was the father of Sir Robert Smirke, prominent
architect and designer of the British Museum, and Sidney Smirke, also a
prominent architect.
5. Swiss-born Maria Anna Catharina Angelica
Kauffmann
was a Rococo-style painter who moved to
London in 1766, where she met Sir Joshua Reynolds
and helped
to found the
Royal Academy in 1769. She married fellow artist Antonio Zucchi and
the couple later made their home in Rome. In
addition to her many portraits, several of Kauffmann's works
were
decorations at St Paul’s and in the Royal Academy’s lecture room at
Somerset House.
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