Taylor, WILLIAM

Taylor, WILLIAM, 'of Norwich,' was born there in 1765, the only son of a rich Unitarian merchant, and was educated at Palgrave by Mrs Barbauld's husband. At fourteen he entered his father's counting-house, but next year was sent on the first of two visits to the Continent, where he mastered French, Italian, and, more especially, German. The French Revolution at once indoctrinated him with democratic ideas and began the ruin of his father's business, which by 1811 was completed by American 'repudiation' and a stock-broker's bankruptcy; Taylor had meanwhile turned wholly from commerce to literature. His is the credit of introducing to English readers the poetry and drama of Germany, mainly through criticisms and translations contributed to periodicals, and collected in his Historic Survey of German Poetry (3 vols. 1828-30). Other works by him were English Synonyms Discriminated (1813) and a Life of F. Sayers, M.D. (1823). He died at Norwich in March 1836. George Borrow, his pupil in German, has sketched in Lavengro his philosophy, scepticism, and inveterate tobacco-smoking; and his correspondence with Southey, Scott, Mackintosh, Godwin, &c. is given in J. W. Robberds' memoir of his Life and Works (2 vols. 1843).