JEREMY TAYLOR.*

Wx seem destined to be perpetually congratulating a section of our publishers upon their contributions not merely to good literature but to good literature displayed as it ought to be displayed and presented to the reader. Recently we had to salute the Nonesuch Press for their splendid edition of Congreve, and now we have to thank the Golden Cockerel Press for the fascinating selection from the works of that most eloquent of Englishmen—Coleridge would have said perhaps of men— Jeremy Taylor. Mr. Martin Armstrong has done his work of selection well. Though his criticism is both attractive and illuminating, we are inclined to think he was right in keeping his editorial introduction down to a few lines over a • Jeremy Taylor. A selection from his works made by Martin Armstroog. Printed

at the Golden Cockerel Press, Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire. del. act!.

page. That page is full of interest and shows the discrimina- tion with which Mr. Armstrong has worked. Remember he had no easy task before him, for Jeremy Taylor is one of the most profuse of English prose-writers. Indeed, we are not sure whether it might not be said that he is the exception to the rule that diffuseness is the worst of literary sins. Mr.

Armstrong does right to quote Coleridge's noble paean over Taylor for his " great and lovely mind." Coleridge also spoke of Taylor as the scholar and gentleman par excellence.

The book leads off proudly with Jeremy Taylor's magnificent dedication of that glorious book, The Liberty of Prophesying, to Lord Hatton of Kirby. Could anything be better than these opening sentences ?- " MY LORD, IN THIS GREAT STORM WHICH HATH dasht the Vessell of the Church all in pieces, I have been cast upon the Coast of Wales, and in a little Boat thought to have enjoyed that rest and quietncsse which in England, in a greater, I could not hope for. Here I cast Anchor, and thinking to ride safely, the Storm followed me with so impetuous violence that it broke a Cable, and I lost my Anchor. And here again I was exposed to the mercy of the Sea and the gentlenesse of an Element that could neither -dis- tinguish things nor persons. And, but that he who stilleth the raging of the Sea, and the noise of his Waves, and the madnesse of his people, had provided a Plank for me, I had been lost to all the opportunities of content or study. But I know not whether I have been more preserved by the courtesies of my friends or the gentlenesse and mercies of a noble Enemy."

One has not read three lines before one feels that a true master of words is at work. Here is the necromancer who is not afraid, like so many of us, of the verbal devils which he raises by his incantations. His words never mutiny or go to the left when he gives them " Right incline ! " They "jump" to his behests sea-fashion and carry out all their orders

" lively " and well.

Mr. Armstrong has with great ability and literary discretion

brought out Jeremy Taylor's marvellous power of producing 0 captions." It is true that Jeremy Taylor's " captions " were originally concealed in the text rather than displayed,

but Mr. Armstrong has unveiled them. He has so chosen his extracts that their first line, printed in bold capitals, provides

an admirable head-line. Take, for instance, the following, chosen almost at random. " He that asks with a doubting mind." Still more up to date is the caption of the next extract, " Religion is worth as much to-day as it was yesterday."

Poignant and worthy of Sir Thomas Browne is the following-

" A man talks of religion but as of a dream." Neither Fleet Street nor all the editorial offices in New York could better the perfect simplicity of " It was well observed by the Persian Ambassadour." That is the prelude of a delightful story of how the young gallants of the Persian army before a battle

railed at their Gods, " saying that there were no such things, and that all things came by chance and industry, nothing by the providence of the supreme power." But when next day they had been handsomely trounced by their enemies they were all for prayer and fasting ! Jeremy Taylor when rubbing in the obvious moral shows a charming example of the inti- macies of his style. For instance, in speaking of the broken sinner, he says how he changes his impudence into " the blushings of a chidden girl." Yet one more admirable head-

line out of many may be taken, though it is perhaps a little too long to call a caption. " We do not live in an age in which there is so much need to bid men be wary, as to take care that they be innocent."

Jeremy Taylor seems always to have had a desire, like Mr.

Weller, senior, to talk about widows. He is never happier than in a widow story. For example, he tells with great gusto and charm the story of Leporina, who resolved to carry out a mutual suicide with her husband. This is what hap- pened. " It was agreed, and she temper'd the poyson and drank the face of the unwholesome goblet, but the weighty poyson sunk to the bottome, and the easie man drank it all off and died, and the woman carried him forth to funeral], and after a little illnesse which she soon recovered, she enter'd upon the inheritance and a second marriage." But, of course, the great widow passage is the description of the Ephesian widow of Petronius transferred by Taylor to his " Holy Dying " with the utmost felicity of thought and language. It is very well known, but it is so exquisite that we cannot forbear to quoteit.

" THE EPHESIAN WOMAN THAT THE SOULDIER told of in Petronius, was the talk of all the town, and the rarest example of a dear affection to her husband ; she descended with the corps into the vault, and there being attended by her maiden resolved to weep to death, or die with famine, or a distempered sorrow : from, which resolution nor his, nor her friends, nor the reverence of the principal Citizens, who used the intreaties of their charity and their power, could perswade her. But a souldier that watched seven dead bodies hanging upon trees just over against this monument, crept in and a while stared upon the silent and comely disorder of the sorrow : and having let the wonder a while breath out at each other eyes, at last he fetched his supper and a bottle of wine with purpose to eat and drinke, and still to feed himself with that sad prettinesse. His pity and first draught of wine made him bold and curious to try if the maid would drink, who having many hours since felt her resolution faint as her wearied body, took his kindnesse, and the light returned into her eyes and danced like boyes in a festival : & fearing lest the pertinaciousness of her Slistresse sorrows should cause her evil to revert, or her shame to approach, assayed whether she would endure to hear an argument to perswade her to drink and live. The violent passion had layd all her spirits in wildnesse and dissolution, and the maid found them willing to be gathered into order at the arrest of any new object, being weary of the first, of which like leaches they had sucked their fill, till they fell down and burst. The weeping woman took her cordial and was not angry with her maid, & heard the Souldier talk, & he was so pleased with the change, that he who first lov'd the silence of the sorrow was more in love with the musick of her returning voice, especially which he himself had strung and put in tune : and the man began to talk amorously, and the woman weak head and heart was soon possessed with a little wine and grew gay, and talked, and fell in love, and that very night in the morning of her passion, in the grave of her husband, in the pomps of mourning, and in her funerall garments, married her new and stranger guest. For so the wild Forragers of Lybia being spent with heat and dissolved by the two fond kisses of the Sun, do melt with their common fires, and die with faintnesse, and descend with motions slow and unable to the little brooks that descend from heaven in the wildernasse ; and when they drink they return into the vigor of' a new life, and contract strange marri- ages ; and the Lionesse is courted by a Panther, and she listens to his love, & conceives a monster that all men call unnatural, & the daughter of an equivocal passion and of a sudden refreshment : and so also was it in the Cave at Ephesus: for by this time the souldier began to think it was fit he should return to his watch, and observe the dead bodies he had in charge ; but when he ascended from his mourning bridall chamber, he found that one of the bodies was stoln by the friends of the dead, and that he was fallen into an evil condition because by the laws of Ephesus his body was to be fixed in the place of it. The poor man returns to his woman, cries out bitterly, and in her presence resolves to die to prevent his death, and in secret to prevent his shame: but now the womans love was raging like her former sadnesse, and grew witty, and she comforted her souldier, and perswaded him to live, lest by losing him who had brought her from death and a more grievious sorrow, she should return to her old solemnities of dying, and lose her honour for a dream, or the reputation of her constancy without the change and satisfaction of an injoyed love. The man would fain have lived if it had been possible, and she found out this way for him, that he should take the body of her first husband, whose funerall she had so strangely mourned, and put it upon the gallows in the place of the stoln thief."

What a piece of writing I There is so much of the sympathy of comprehension and so little cynicism that we may without offence call it a story of innocence. How delightful is the picture of the soldier feeding himself with that " sad pretti- nesse " and of how the maid's eyes " danced like boycs in a festival." Pleasant, too, and without offence in its context is the phrase " she comforted her souldier." The only touch of cynicism is indeed in the last sentence of the passage, which we have made bold to leave out. It is, in truth, inconsistent with the general spirit of the narration.

In writing of the Ephesian widow of Petronius we must not forget the even stranger tale of the Chinese widow. It is so memorable and has an irony so poignant that we cannot refrain from telling it :—

" A Chinese philosopher was passing through a burial-ground when he saw a young and prepossessing lady, dressed in white (the Chinese mourning colour), sitting beside a newly-made grave which she was fanning vigorously with a fan. He went up to her and said, Madame, you interest me very much ; will you tell me why you are fanning the grave 1 ' The lady scowled at him and made no reply, whereupon he repeated his question, saying, ' I ask out of no idle curiosity, for I am a philosopher and student of human nature, and your action interests me immensely.' The lady again scowled at him and said nothing ; so he walked on. As he was passing a bamboo grove hard by, a Chinese servant came out of it and plucked him by the sleeve, saying, 'I saw you speaking to my mistress just now and I feel sure you were asking her why she was fanning that newly-made grave. The reason is this : my mistress and my master, who died a fortnight ago, were passionately devoted to each other. When my master was on his deathbed, my mistress wept and said, "If you die, I swear I will go into-a nunnery." My master replied, " Swear not that." My mis- tress then said, " Well, if I do not go into a nunnery, I swear I will never marry again." My master replied, " Swear not that, but if you must swear, swear that you will not marry again until the sods on my grave are dry." ' "

Here we are down to brass tacks. There is none of the subtle and excusing romance which evidently so much delighted Taylor in Petronius's version of the widow's dilemma.

We could run on for ever quoting noble passages and exquisite phrases from Mr. Armstrong's collection of flowers from the sermons and books. We must, however, before we finish, put up a signpost to the passage from the Sermons, which incidentally describes some of the gluttonous feasts of the ancients. In it conies the adorable phrase which probably Keats may have seen before he.put cayenne pepper down his throat the better to enjoy the coolness of his claret. We are told of those who " feel the descending wines distilled through the limbeck of the tongue and larynx." And then comes the admonition, as admirable in its phraseology as in its moral : " But lose no time ; for the Sunne drives hard, and the shadow is long."

Let us leave Taylor not only with an " Are atque Vale,'.; but with a Benison, for lie was without doubt one of the most Christ-like of Christians.