and violence of civil and religious hostility, we find him conciliating, when a prisoner, the favour of his keepers, at the same time that he preserved, undiminished, the confidence and esteem of his own party. Laud, in the height of his power and full-blown dignity; Charles, in his deepest reverses; Hatton, Vaughan, and Conway, amid the tumults of civil war; and Evelyn, in the tranquillity of his elegant retirement; seem alike to have cherished his friendship, and coveted his society. The same genius which extorted the commendation of Jeanes, for the variety of its research and vigour of its argument, was also an object of interest and affection with the young, and rich, and beautiful Katharine Philips; and few writers, who have expressed their opinions so strongly, and, sometimes, so unguardedly as he has done, have lived and died with so much praise and so little censure. Much of this felicity may be probably referred to an engaging appearance and a pleasing manner; but its cause must be sought, in a still greater degree, in the evident kindliness of heart, which, if the uniform tenour of a man's writings is any index to his character, must have distinguished him from most : men living in a temper, to all appearance warm, but easily conciliated; and in that which, as it is one of the least common, is of all dispositions the most attractive, not merely a neglect, but a total forgetfulness of all selfish feeling. It is this, indeed, which seems to have constituted the most striking feature of his character. Other men have been, to judge from their writings and their lives, to all appearance, as religious, as regular in their devotions, as diligent in the performance of all which the laws of God or man require from us; but with Taylor his duty seems to have been a delight, his piety a passion. His faith was the more vivid in proportion as his fancy was more intensely vigorous; with him the objects of his hope and reverence were scarcely unseen or future; his imagination daily conducted him to 'diet with gods,' and elevated him to the same height above the world, and the same nearness to ineffable things, which Milton ascribes to his allegorical cherub Contemplation.' "With a mind less accurately disciplined in the trammels and harness of the schools-less deeply imbued with ancient learning-less uniformly accustomed to compare his notions with G the dictates of elder saints and sages, and submit his novelties to the authority and censure of his superiors-such ardour of fancy might. have led him into dangerous errors; or have estranged him too far from the active duties, the practical wisdom of life, and its dull and painful realities: and, on the other hand, his logic and learning-his veneration for antiquity and precedent-and his monastic notions of obedience in matters of faith as well as doctrine-might have fettered the energies of a less ardent mind, and weighed him down into an intolerant opposer of all unaccustomed truths, and, in his own practice, a superstitious formalist. Happily, however, for himself and the world, Taylor was neither an enthusiast nor a bigot: and, if there are some few of his doctrines from which our assent is withheld by the decisions of the church and the language of Scripture, even these (while in themselves they are almost altogether speculative, and such as could exercise no injurious influence on the essentials of faith or the obligations to holiness,) may be said to have a leaning to the side of piety, and to have their foundation in a love for the Deity, and a desire to vindicate his -- goodness, no less than to excite mankind to aspire after greater degrees of perfection. "In the lessons which flow from this chair, in the incense which flames on this altar, the sound of worldly polemics is hushed, the light of worldly fires becomes dim. We see a saint in his closet, a Christian bishop in his ministry; and we rise from the intercourse impressed and softened with a sense how much our own practice yet needs amendment, and how mighty has been that faith of which these are the fruits, that hope of which these are the pledges and prelibations. "Of the broader and more general lines of Taylor's literary character, a very few observations may be sufficient. The greatness of his attainments, and the powers of his mind, are evident in all his writings, and to the least attentive of his readers. It is hard to point out a branch of learning or of scientific pursuit to which he does not occasionally allude; or any author of eminence, either ancient or modern, with whom he does not evince himself acquainted. And it is certain, that as very few other writers have had equal riches to display, so he is apt to display his stores with a lavish exuberance, which the severer taste of Hooker or of Barrow would have condemned as ostentatious, or rejected as cumbersome. Yet he is far from a mere reporter of other men's arguments,—a textuary of fathers and schoolmen, -who resigns his reason into the hands of his predecessors, and who employs no other instrument for convincing their readers than a lengthened string of authorities. His familiarity with the stores of ancient and modern literature is employed to illustrate more frequently than to establish his positions; and may be traced, not so much in direct citation, (though of this, too, there is, perhaps, more than sufficient,) as in the abundance of his allusions, the character of his imagery, and the frequent occurrence of terms of foreign derivation, or employed in a foreign and unusual meaning. "On the other hand, few circumstances can be named which so greatly contribute to the richness of his matter, the vivacity of his style, and the harmony of his language, as those copious drafts on all which is wise or beautiful or extraordinary, in ancient writers or in foreign tongues; and the very singularity and hazard of his phrases has not unfrequently a peculiar |