DOCSLIB.ORG

Biography John Taylor

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Biography John Taylor Biography John Taylor When literature revived, the same kind of pleasure which had just before been given by a pedantic vocabulary, was produced by classical allusions, and imitations of ancient, or of Italian writers. The language then improved so suddenly, that it changed more in the course of one generation than it had done in the two preceding centuries; Elizabeth, who grew up while it was comparatively barbarous, lived to see it made capable of giving adequate expression to the loftiest conceptions of human imagination. Poets were then, perhaps, more abundant than they have been in any subsequent age until the present: and, as a necessary consequence of that abundance, all tricks of style were tried, and all fantasticalities of conceit abounded; they who were poets by imitative desire or endeavour, putting forth their strength in artificial and ambitious efforts, while the true poets held the true course, . though the best of them did not always escape from what had thus been made the vice of their age. The circumstances, therefore, of low breeding and defective education were so unfavourable, that the first person who, in a certain degree overcame them, obtained great notoriety, and no inconsiderable share of patronage. This was John Taylor, the Water-Poet, a man who has long been more known by name than by his writings. He was born in Gloucestershire, but at what place none of his biographers have stated in their scanty notices, nor has he himself mentioned in the volume entitled, "All the Works of John Taylor, the Water-Poet, being sixty-three in number, collected into one Volume by the Author, with sundry new Additions, corrected, revised, and newly imprinted, 1630." The book, though in height that of a modern quarto, would be catalogued among folios, for its shape; it is in fact neither, but of a nondescript size which may be called sexto, the sheet being folded into six leaves. It contains something more than 600 pages, in three series of paging, more than two-thirds consisting of verse closely printed and in double columns. Taylor lived twenty-four years after the publication of this volume, and published a great deal more; and though in this collection, (which is all that I have had opportunity of perusing,) there is some ribaldry and more rubbish, there is, nevertheless, so much which repays the search, that I wish the remainder of his works had been in like manner collected. Young Taylor had an odd schoolmaster, upon whom some of his neighbours played a scurvy jest; the poor man was fond of new milk, and went to market for the purpose of buying a milch cow; but being short-sighted, and perhaps in other respects better qualified to deal with books than men, the seller, in sport it may be believed rather than roguery, sold him a bull, . which poor "Master Green, being thus overseen," drove contentedly home, and did not discover the trick till he had called the maid to milk it. What happened to the pail in consequence called forth a memorial in four lines from his pupil, which was probably John's first attempt in verse. In other respects he was by his own account no very hopeful scholar: in that part of the poem called Taylor's Motto, which he entitles, "My Serious Cares and Considerations," he says— I was well entered, forty winters since, As far as possum in my accidence; And reading but from possum to posset, There I was mired and could no further get, Which when I think upon with mind dejected, I care to think how learning I neglected. Having thus stuck fast in the thorns and brambles of the Latin grammar, he was taken from school and bound apprentice to a Thames waterman, perhaps as soon as he could handle an oar. The occupation is likely to have been his own choice, for it was well suited to his bold, hardy, and at that time, idle disposition in those days, too, it was a thriving one, and gave employment to more men than any other trade or calling in the metropolis. Taylor, indeed, says, that "the number of watermen and those that lived and were maintained by them, and by the only labour of the oar and scull, betwixt the bridge of Windsor and Gravesend, could not be fewer than forty thousand." There may be some exaggeration in this; but when this assertion was made, the company was overstocked with hands, the circumstances which had occasioned its great growth and prosperity having changed. The first cause of its decline was the long peace which this country enjoyed under James I.: the Thames had been in time of war the great nursery for the navy; the watermen were "at continual demand" for the Queen's service, "as in duty bound," and good service they had done in all Elizabeth's wars. "Every summer 1500 or 2000 of them were employed" in her ships, "having but nine shillings and four-pence the month, apiece, for their pay; and yet they were able then to set themselves out like men, with shift of apparel, linen and woollen, and forbear charging of their prince for their pay, sometimes six months, nine months, twelve months, sometimes more; for then there were so few watermen, and the one half of them being at sea, those that staid at home had as much work as they would do." To their good fortune, also, for a while, the players at that time "began to play on the Bankside (Southwark) and to leave playing in London and Middlesex, for the most part." There were three companies playing there at once, "besides the bear-baiting;" and "then there went such great concourse of people by water, that the small number of watermen remaining at home were not able to carry them, by reason of the court, the terms, the players, and other employments; so that they were enforced and encouraged (hoping that this golden stirring world would have lasted ever) to take and entertain men and boys." Owing to this establishment of the three theatres on the Bankside, the company of watermen was increased more than half. But peace came, and the men who had been employed at sea returned to their old trade upon the river; and as misfortunes seldom come singly, (for a misfortune to the watermen peace was,) two of the three sets of players removed from the Surrey side to the Middlesex one, and there played "far remote from the Thames, so that every day in the week they drew unto them 3000 or 4000 people that were used to spend their monies by water." This reduced the watermen to great distress, and in 1613 they petitioned the King that the players might not be allowed to have a playhouse in London, nor within four miles of it, on that side the river; "the reasons that moved us unto it," says Taylor, "being charitably considered, make the suit seem not only reasonable, but past seeming most necessary to be sued for, and tolerable to be granted." He was selected by the company to deliver the petition and follow the business, which he did at the cost of seven pounds two shillings, for "horse-hire, horse-meat, and man's meat, expended in two journies to Theobalds, one to Newmarket, and two to Royston," before he could get the petition referred to the commissioners for suits. A counter-petition was presented by his Majesty's players, who said, that the watermen might just as reasonably propose to remove the Exchange, the walks in St. Paul's, or Moorfields, to the Bankside, for their own profit, as to confine them to it; "but our extremities and cause," says Taylor, "being judiciously pondered by the honourable and worshipful commissioners, Sir Francis Bacon very worthily said, that so far forth as the public weal was to be regarded before pastimes, or a serviceable, decaying multitude before a handful of particular men, or profit before pleasure, so far was our suit to be preferred before their's." A day was appointed for determining the business; but before it came, the chief commissioner, Sir Julius Caesar, was made Master of the Rolls, by which means the commission was dissolved, and the case never came to a farther hearing. Had it proceeded, another proof would probably have been given, notwithstanding Bacon's opinion, that the convenience of the great public when opposed to any part of that public, must ultimately prevail, even though the convenience gained should be trifling, and the injury sustained by the minor part of the most serious nature. Within our own memory, shoe-strings have prevailed over buckles in despite of ridicule, and covered buttons over metal ones in defiance of pains and penalties, in each case to the great detriment of what had been a flourishing branch of our manufactures. But the watermen were unreasonable in requiring that the Londoners, in that best age of the English drama, should, whenever they went to the play, be put to the discomfort and charged with the expense of crossing and recrossing the water; and that the players should be confined to the Bankside, where bad weather must so materially have affected their receipts. Taylor complains in another of his pamphlets, that he and "many thousands more were much impoverished and hindered of their livings" by the proclamations which from time to time were issued, requiring the gentry to retire from the capital into their own countries. In certain despotic governments the sovereigns are said to have pursued the evil policy of keeping their nobles about the court, for the purpose of lessening their influence in the provinces, and rendering them dependent upon court favour and state employments, by involving them in habitual expenses beyond what their patrimonial revenues could support.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • An Annotated Edition
    John Taylor’s Nonsence upon Sence, or Sence upon Nonsence: An Annotated Edition By Emily Cock Supervised by K.K. Ruthven Submitted in part-fulfillment of the BA(Hons) Discipline of English and Creative Writing The University of Adelaide November 2007 To Ken and Kirsty, who’ve had to live with Taylor and me. 2 Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 5 Note on the Text ..................................................................................................................... 12 The Text: Part One (1651) .................................................................................................... 13 Appendix 1: Facsimile of Nonsence (1651) ........................................................................ 137 Appendix 2: ‘The Second Part’ (1651b) ............................................................................ 138 Appendix 3: ‘The Third Part’ (1654) ................................................................................. 151 Works Cited ......................................................................................................................... 162 Publications by John Taylor .............................................................................................. 162 General .............................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Shakespeare Booklet
    SHAKESPEARE IN OXFORD A Guide and Brief Trail Illustrations Front cover: William Shakespeare, probably by John Taylor, circa 1600 - 1610: the only portrait of Shakespeare that has a good claim to being painted from life. It was once in the possession of Sir William Davenant and was the first portrait to be acquired by the National Portrait Gallery when it was founded in 1856. © National Portrait Gallery, London Back cover: Sir William Davenant by William Faithorne, after John Greenhill, 1672. © National Portrait Gallery, London SHAKESPEARE IN OXFORD A Guide and Brief Trail lthough William Shakespeare is probably the world’s best- known writer, little is known about his life. is is a brief guide introducing people to Shakespeare and Oxford. It Awas commissioned by the Oxford Preservation Trust to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and to introduce readers to two sites in Oxford signicantly associated with Shakespeare. e leaet can either be read on its own, or whilst walking on a trail of roughly 500 metres, starting at Carfax and ending at the King’s Arms. Many actors all over the world regularly perform Shakespeare’s plays. Even more students, the whole world over, and of all ages, study his plays, and argue over their interpretation. In few places do they do this more than Oxford, where the University English Faculty forms an unrivalled centre of Shakespearean studies. Shakespeare liked literature and made his living from it. But there is even more evidence that he enjoyed and valued life, the people around him, and the environment in which they lived.
    [Show full text]
  • Goe Thou Forth My Booke': Authorial Self-Assertion and Self-Representation in Printings of Renaissance Poetry
    •GOE THOU FORTH MY BOOKE': AUTHORIAL SELF-ASSERTION AND SELF-REPRESENTATION IN PRINTINGS OF RENAISSANCE POETRY by RONALD SCOTT RENCHLER A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 1987 11 APPROVED: ^ ' • u^ - (<^L<. > • Will 1am Rockett 111 Copyright 1987 Ronald Scott Renchler 1v An Abstract of the Dissertation of Ronald Scott Renchler for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English to be taken June 1987 Title: 'GOE THOU FORTH MY BOOKE': AUTHORIAL SELF-ASSERTION AND SELF-REPRESENTATION IN PRINTINGS OF RENAISSANCE POETRY Approved: < Dr. Wil11am Rockett The introduction of printing into England created new opportunities for the Renaissance poet to represent himself more forcefully as a literary artist concerned with the well-being or improvement of his culture and to make public his desire for recognition as a contributor to England's literary heritage. One of the primary ways he could do so was to create a distinctive image of himself in his printed works. He could communicate his chosen image 1n two ways: In a traditional way* by using the language and content of his poetry> and in a new way--primari1y visual rather than 1inguist1c--by conveying an image through textual features made possible with the advent of printing. For example* a poet could guarantee that he would receive perpetual credit for his work and he could link authorship and book directly in the consciousness of his readers by seeing to 1t that his name was placed prominently on the title page.
    [Show full text]
  • John Taylor - Poems
    Classic Poetry Series John Taylor - poems - Publication Date: 2012 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive John Taylor(24 August 1578 – 1653) John Taylor was an English poet who dubbed himself "The Water Poet". <b>Biography</b> He was born in Gloucester, 24 August 1578. After his waterman apprenticeship he served (1596) in Essex's fleet, and was present at Flores in 1597 and at the siege of Cadiz. He spent much of his life as a Thames waterman, a member of the guild of boatmen that ferried passengers across the River Thames in London, in the days when the London Bridge was the only passage between the banks. He became a member of the ruling oligarchy of the guild, serving as its clerk; it is mainly through his writings that history is familiar with the watermen's disputes of 1641–42, in which an attempt was made to democratize the leadership of the Company. He details the uprisings in the pamphlets Iohn Taylors Manifestation ... and To the Right Honorable Assembly ... (Commons Petition), and in John Taylors Last Voyage and Adventure of 1641. Taylor discusses the watermen's disputes with the theater companies (who moved the theaters from the south bank to the north in 1612, depriving the ferries of traffic) in The True Cause of the Watermen's Suit Concerning Players (written in 1613 or 1614). He also addresses the coachmen, in his tracts An Errant Thief (1622) and The World Runnes on Wheeles (1623). Taylor was also the first poet to mention the deaths of William Shakespeare and Francis Beaumont in print, in his 1620 poem, "The Praise of Hemp-seed".
    [Show full text]
  • The Needles Excellency: John Taylor in Perspective Lisa Vanden Berghe
    The Needles Excellency: John Taylor in Perspective Lisa Vanden Berghe A Thesis in The Department of History Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (History) At Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada By Lisa Vanden Berghe B.A. Arizona State University March 2018 © Lisa Vanden Berghe, 2018 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY School of Graduate Studies This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Lisa Vanden Berghe Entitled: The Needles Excellency: John Taylor in Perspective and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (History) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final Examining Committee: _________________________________ Dr. Barbara Lorenzkowski, Chair _________________________________ Dr. Ted McCormick, Examiner _________________________________ Dr. Brad Nelson, Examiner _________________________________ Dr. Shannon McSheffrey, Supervisor Approved by: _________________________________ Chair of Department or Graduate Program Director _________________________________ Dean of Faculty ______________2018 ABSTRACT The Needles Excellency: John Taylor in Perspective Lisa Vanden Berghe The Needles Excellency is one of the few books widely considered to have been published specifically for British women during the seventeenth century. As such, it is regularly referred to by historians of topics such as women’s history, textile history, art history, and book history. This thesis takes on the task of filling out the history of and around The Needles Excellency, including exploring the context of its author John Taylor’s sexism, the popularity of needlework pattern books, and his intended audience(s). England was a deeply patriarchal society and that influenced everything from the formation of Taylor’s views, to his approach to his audience, and their reception of his writing.
    [Show full text]
  • Ben Jonson and the Court. Mildred Shows Chapman Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1969 Ben Jonson and the Court. Mildred Shows Chapman Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Chapman, Mildred Shows, "Ben Jonson and the Court." (1969). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 1579. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1579 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This dlsMrtatfon has bssn microfilmsd sxactly as rscslvsd 70-226 C H A P M A N , Mildred Shows, 1914- BEN JONSON AND THE COURT. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1969 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan © Mildred Shows Chapman 1970 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BEN JONSON AND THE COURT A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Mildred Shows Chapman B.A., Northwestern State College, 1935 M.A., Northwestern State College, 1958 May, 1969 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. William J. Olive, my major professor, for his generous interest, encouragement, and guidance which made this endeavor pos­ sible; to Dr. Thomas A. Kirby, Dr. Lewis P. Simpson, Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Shakespeare's Impossible Doublet: Droeshout's Engraving Anatomized
    Brief Chronicles Vol. II (2010) 9 Shakespeare’s Impossible Doublet: Droeshout’s Engraving Anatomized John M. Rollett Abstract The engraving of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout on the title page of the 1623 First Folio has often been criticized for various oddities. In 1911 a professional tailor asserted that the right-hand side of the poet’s doublet was “obviously” the left-hand side of the back of the garment. In this paper I describe evidence which confirms this assessment, demonstrating that Shakespeare is pictured wearing an impossible garment. By printing a caricature of the man from Stratford-upon-Avon, it would seem that the publishers were indicating that he was not the author of the works that bear his name. he Exhibition Searching for Shakespeare,1 held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 2006, included several pictures supposed at one time or another to be portraits of our great poet and playwright. TOnly one may have any claim to authenticity — that engraved by Martin Droeshout for the title page of the First Folio (Figure 1), the collection of plays published in 1623. Because the dedication and the address “To the great Variety of Readers” are each signed by John Hemmings and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s theatrical colleagues, and because Ben Jonson’s prefatory poem tells us “It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,” the engraving appears to have the imprimatur of Shakespeare’s friends and fellows. The picture is not very attractive, and various defects have been pointed out from time to time – the head is too large, the stiff white collar or wired band seems odd, left and right of the doublet don’t quite match up.
    [Show full text]
  • News Release
    News Release Strictly Embargoed until 00.01 Friday 30 April 2021 William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I Travel to Korea in National Portrait Gallery Exhibition New major exhibition of some of the National Portrait Gallery, London’s best-known works opens at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul, South Korea National Portrait Gallery conservator in London uses video call technology to oversee the installation of the ‘Chandos portrait’ of William Shakespeare in the Gallery’s Icons and Identities exhibition at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul. Photograph © Park Jung Hoon. Portrait: William Shakespeare, associated with John Taylor, circa 1600-1610, © National Portrait Gallery, London. The National Portrait Gallery is staging its first ever exhibition in Korea as Icons and Identities from the National Portrait Gallery, London opened this week at the National Museum of Korea from 29 April until 15 August 2021. This major new exhibition is the first dedicated to western portraiture to travel to Korea and features seventy-eight of the National Portrait Gallery’s most significant portraits, shown together internationally for the first time while the Gallery in London is temporarily closed for a major transformation. The exhibition will also travel to the Fries Museum in the Netherlands in September 2021. The exhibition includes iconic works that normally feature in the Gallery’s permanent displays in London, rarely if ever leaving the Gallery’s walls, and some that have never been outside the UK since their acquisition into the Collection, such as Sir Anthony van Dyck’s last self-portrait and the self-portraits of twentieth- century artists Doris Zinkeisen and Paule Vézelay.
    [Show full text]
  • Emily Cock, Final Version
    ‘Nonsence is Rebellion’: John Taylor’s Nonsence upon Sence, or Sence, upon Nonsence (1651–1654) and the English Civil War Emily Cock University oF Adelaide Abstract: This article examines the political content of John Taylor’s Nonsence upon Sence, or Sence, upon Nonsence: Chuse you either, or neither (1651–1654), challenging the customary dismissal of this poem as light-hearted nonsense verse. Taylor was a staunch Royalist who had openly criticised the divisions of the English Civil War and the proliferation of religious separatists. I argue that Nonsence continues this project under a mask of playful ambiguity. The literary disorder created in this text, which Taylor calls ‘nonsence’, is made to mirror the social, religious and political fragmentation of post-war London, as sentences and words are broken down and rearranged in unfamiliar and disturbing ways. The article serves not only as a stylistic assessment of Taylor’s political satire, but also to historicise his engagement with nonsense and place within that literary tradition. 1 Emily Cock, ‘Nonsence is Rebellion’ England’s transition from monarchy to short-lived commonwealth was never likely to be smooth.1 The Civil War fed on religious and political divisions and left ongoing fractures in the body politic well into the Restoration period. John Taylor (1578– 1653) was one of the most prolific Royalist pens to contribute to the explosion of print that occurred in this period, in which writers on both sides battled to ‘out- word’ each other as fiercely as did the soldiers in armed combat.2 This article highlights Taylor’s stylistic techniques in one of his last and longest poems, in which he uses a poetic sense of disorder, which he calls ‘nonsence’, to critique the fragmentation and disorder of Civil War England.
    [Show full text]
  • Imagining Henry Viii: Cultural Memory and the Tudor King, 1535-1625
    IMAGINING HENRY VIII: CULTURAL MEMORY AND THE TUDOR KING, 1535-1625 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Mark Rankin, B.S., M.A. **** The Ohio State University 2007 Dissertation Committee: Professor John N. King, Adviser Professor David Cressy Professor Richard Dutton Professor Christopher Highley Graduate Program in English Copyright by Mark Rankin 2007 ABSTRACT Tudor and early-Stuart writers refashioned the posthumous reputation of King Henry VIII during the reigns of Henry’s royal successors in response to ongoing debate over the interconnected themes of English religious and national identity. Henry’s legacy as a potential supporter of these notions was ambivalent owing to the shifting policies in religious affairs that he displayed during his own lifetime. This ambivalence enabled writers to manipulate Henry into either a partisan supporter or strong opponent of competing religious and political ideologies after his death. By employing an interdisciplinary methodology encompassing archival research and the study of early printed materials, this study analyzes literature written about Henry in its political and historical contexts. It redresses our present lack of knowledge of how Henry acquired his modern-day status as one of England’s most memorable and recognizable monarchs. From the publication of the first complete English Bible in 1535 to the death of James I in 1625, authors manipulated Henry VIII from widely divergent perspectives and agendas. In the process, they shaped his cultural presence by arguing about his relevance to disputes over the future of the nation’s religious and political affairs.
    [Show full text]
  • Ben Jonson￢ﾀﾙs Dead Body
    Ben Jonson’s Dead Body: Henry, Prince of Wales, and the glgl Folio Jonathan P. Lamb $%231$&3 This essay examines the glgl Ben Jonson Folio in the context of the social, poetic, and bibliographical aftermath of the death of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, in glgh. Those involved in the stated and implied social network surrounding the book overlap significantly with those involved in Henry’s death and funeral, and with those who participated in the outpouring of grief in print. Jonson’s Folio rehearses the typography and poetics of grief established as a prece- dent in the mourning of glgh. +(54/1'2: grief books; sociology of the text; William Stansby; Humphrey Lownes; William Cheeke (glgl) has often invited such labels as “memorial” and “monumental,” terms strongly associated with death. In Ionsonus Vir- bius (glin), a mourning book for Jonson, Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland proclaimed that “Writing his Workes, [Jonson] built his Monument,” the object by which Jonson would be remembered.g Perhaps more intriguing are two annotations in a copy of the Workes held at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas. They are in different hands and date from the seventeenth or early eighteenth cen- turies, and both concern death. On the verso of the title page, someone has written an epigram “Vppon the death of Ben: Jonson”: “Ben gott such fame by his translating Penn, / That doting Death at last translated Ben” (fig. g).h Then, on the last printed page, an annotator has inscribed, “in my defenc god me defend and bring my soule to one good end” (fig.
    [Show full text]