Henry Taylor (dramatist)

From Vero - Wikipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox writer Sir Henry Taylor Template:Post-nominals (18 October 1800 – 27 March 1886) was an English dramatist and poet, Colonial Office official, and man of letters.

Early life

Henry Taylor was born on 18 October 1800 in Bishop Middleham. He was the third son of George Taylor Sr and Eleanor Ashworth, who died when he was an infant.<ref name="DNB">Template:Cite DNB</ref> His father remarried Jane Mills in 1818, and the family then moved to Witton-le-Wear.<ref name="ODNB">Template:ODNBweb</ref> George Taylor Sr's friend Charles Arbuthnot found vocational positions in London for Henry Taylor and his elder brother, George Taylor Jr. In 1817, the pair along with their second brother, William, a medical student, went to London. Soon afterwards, all three siblings contracted typhus fever, and both his brothers died within a fortnight.<ref name="DNB"/>

Following this tragedy, Henry Taylor then accepted work in the Colonial administration of Barbados.<ref name="ODNB" /> Taylor's place in Barbados was abolished in 1820, subsequent to which he returned to his father's house.

At the Colonial Office

Taylor obtained a clerkship in the Colonial Office, where he subsequently worked from 1824 until 1872, through Henry Holland. In this position Taylor served under the permanent secretary Robert William Hay.<ref name="DNB"/><ref>Template:ODNBweb</ref> Taylor was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 1869 Birthday Honours.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>

Hay's successors included James Stephen, Herman Merivale and Frederic Rogers. Hay, Stephen, Taylor and James Spedding, who also worked in the Office, each proposed reform.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> During the 1830s, Taylor and Stephen endorsed the abolitionist contentions of Viscount Howick, as a consequence of which Stephen replaced Hay.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Taylor died on 27 March 1886.<ref name="ODNB"/>

Literary connections

File:Study of King David, by Julia Margaret Cameron.jpg
Study of King David, by Julia Margaret Cameron. King David is depicted by Sir Henry Taylor, 1866

Taylor wrote Byronic poems and an article on Thomas Moore, which in 1822 was accepted for the Quarterly Review by William Gifford.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Returning to London in October 1823, he found that Gifford had printed another article of his, on Lord John Russell.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Taylor had also contributed to the London Magazine,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and had an offer of the editorship.<ref name="DNB"/>

His father George was a friend of William Wordsworth. In 1823, on a visit to the Lake District, Henry Taylor made the acquaintance of Robert Southey, and they became friends.<ref name="DNB"/> Jane Taylor had a first cousin, Isabella Fenwick (1783–1856), whom he introduced to the Wordsworth family. She became a close friend of Wordsworth in later life, as she had been of Taylor up to the time of his marriage.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Wyatt1995">Template:Cite book</ref> Though Fenwick was not herself a writer, her friendship left an enduring impression on the writings of Taylor and Wordsworth. In his autobiography, Henry Taylor wrote, “There is a good deal of her mind in my writings. I wish there was more; and I wish that she had left her thoughts behind her in writings of her own.”<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

File:Henry Taylor Philip Van Artevelde, by Julia Margaret Cameron.jpg
Henry Taylor, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron, for whom he was a regular sitter. The beard was grown after illness made him wary of shaving himself. Millais wished (in vain) to have Taylor model for him as Moses.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Taylor's work also brought him literary friends: the circle of Thomas Hyde Villiers, and his colleague James Stephen.<ref>Template:ODNBweb</ref><ref>Template:ODNBweb</ref> Through Villiers he became acquainted with Charles Austin, John Stuart Mill, and some of the Benthamites. He made speeches in opposition to their views, in the debating society documented by Mill. He also invited them to personal meetings with Wordsworth and Southey.<ref name="DNB"/> Mill introduced Taylor to Thomas Carlyle in November 1831, initiating a long friendship.<ref name="Cumming2004">Template:Cite book</ref> Carlyle's opinion of the "marked veracity" of Taylor was printed wrongly by the editor James Anthony Froude as "morbid vivacity".<ref name="Mr. Froude and Carlyle">Template:Cite book</ref> He also knew John Sterling,<ref>Template:ODNBweb</ref> and made the acquaintance of Fanny Trollope whilst attending the court of Louis Philippe of France.

Taylor aspired to become the official biographer of Southey. The family row over Southey's second marriage, to Caroline Anne Bowles, found him with the Wordsworths and others hostile to Bowles.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He did become Southey's literary executor.<ref name="Seville1999">Template:Cite book</ref>

Works

In Witton, Taylor wrote The Cave of Ceada which was accepted for the Quarterly Review. Taylor wrote a number of plays, including Isaac Comnenus (1827),<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Philip van Artevelde (1834).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This latter brought him fame and elicited comparisons with Shakespeare. In 1845 there followed a book of lyrical poems. His essay The Statesman (1836) caused some controversy, as a "supposedly" satirical view of how the civil service worked.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Taylor published his Autobiography in 1885, which contains portraits of Wordsworth, Southey, Tennyson and Walter Scott. In it, on his own account, he gave Richard Whately's opinion of him as a "resuscitated Bacon", who had better things to do than write verse (which could be left to women).<ref>* Template:Cite book archive.org.</ref>

His poem Edwin the Fair<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> depicted Charles Elliot as Earl Athulf.<ref>Template:ODNBweb</ref> Thomas Frederick Elliot, Charles's brother, was a Colonial Office colleague.<ref name="DNB"/>

Literary reputation

In his own time, Taylor was highly esteemed as a poet and dramatist.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> For example, J.G. Lockhart claimed that Philip Van Artevelde secured Taylor "a place among the real artists of his time",<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and, as late as 1868, J.H. Stirling ranked Philip higher than anything produced by Robert Browning.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Modern literary historians, however, tend to overlook Taylor's accomplishments in verse and drama and emphasize his importance as a literary critic, pointing out that he was a strong advocate for stylistic simplicity, subject matter rooted in common life, and intellectual discipline in poetic composition, placing special importance on clear and reasoned structure.<ref name="poston">Template:Cite journalTemplate:Dead link</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Marriage and family

Taylor married Hon. Theodosia Alice Spring Rice, daughter of Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon, on 17 October 1839. They had five children, including the biographer Ida Alice Ashworth Taylor and the novelists Eleanor Ashworth Towle and Una Ashworth Taylor.<ref name="ODNB"/><ref name="Wyatt1995"/>

Sources

  • {{#invoke:Template wrapper|wrap|_template=cite wikisource

| _exclude = noicon,inline,short,wslink,plaintitle,year | _alias-map = authorlink:author-link, archiveurl:archive-url, archivedate:archive-date,wspage:page,nopp:no-pp, 1:chapter,title:chapter,wstitle:chapter,laysummary:lay-summary,laydate:lay-date | firsticon = {{#if:||1}} | noicon = 1 | prescript = {{#if:|One or more of the preceding sentences|This article}} incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: | last = {{#if: ||Cousin}} | first = {{#if: ||John William}} | author-link = {{#if: ||John William Cousin}} | wslink = A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature | plaintitle = A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature | year = 1910 | publisher = {{#if: ||J. M. Dent & Sons}} | location = {{#if: ||London}} }}Template:Main other

Selected bibliography

Plays

Poems

Chapters in books

Essays

References

Template:Reflist

Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=Henry_Taylor_(dramatist)&oldid=568597"