they enjoyed only from the reflection of his excellences, which were bright and radiant enough to a cast glory upon a whole order of men.”

There is a Life of Taylor by Archdeacon Bonney; and a copious Memoir, enriched by a minute analysis of all the more remarkable compositions of our author, is prefixed to Bishop Heber's edition of Taylor's works. From this the materials of the present sketch are taken. Nor can we better conclude than with the eloquent estimate of Taylor's merits with which the accomplished biographer concludes his work. "It is on devotional and moral subjects that the peculiar character of Taylor's mind is most, and most successfully, developed. To this service he devotes his most glowing language; to this his aptest illustrations, his thoughts, and his words, at once burst into a flame, when touched by the coals of this altar; and whether he describes the duties, or dangers, or hopes of man, or the mercy, power, and justice of the Most High; whether he exhorts or instructs his brethren, or offers up his supplications in their behalf to the common Father of all, his conceptions and his expressions belong to the loftiest and most sacred description of poetry, of which they only want, what they cannot be said to need, the name and the metrical arrange

ment.

"It is this distinctive excellence, still more than the other qualifications of learning and logical acuteness, which has placed him, even in that age of gigantic talent, on an eminence superior to any of his immediate contemporaries; and has seated him, by the almost unanimous estimate of posterity, on the same lofty elevation with Hooker and with Barrow.

"Of such a triumvirate, who shall settle the precedence? Yet it may, perhaps, be not far from the truth, to observe that Hooker claims the foremost rank in sustained and classic dignity of style, in political and pragmatical wisdom; that to Barrow the praise must be assigned of the closest and clearest views, and of a taste the most controlled and chastened; but that in imagination, in interest, in that which more properly and ex

clusively deserves the name of genius, Taylor is to be placed before either. The first awes most, the second convinces most, the third persuades and delights most; and, according to the decision of one whose own rank among the ornaments of English literature yet remains to be determined by posterity (Dr. Parr), Hooker is the object of our reverence, Barrow of our admiration, and Jeremy Taylor of our love."

THE father of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, was Henry Hyde, of Dinton, in Wiltshire, who was the third son of Lawrence Hyde, of Westhatch, younger son of Robert Hyde, of Norbury and Hyde, in the county of Chester. Clarendon's own account, in what is called his Life, is, that the estate of Norbury had been in the family, and had descended from father to son, from before the Conquest, and that that of Hyde had been long afterwards acquired by marriage; but it appears that Hyde was the original family estate, and that the other was acquired in the reign of Henry III., by the marriage of Sir Robert Hyde, knight, son of Matthew de Hyde, to Agnes de Herdislee, cousin and heiress of Thomas de Norbury. Robert Hyde, of Norbury and Hyde, the great-grandfather of Lord Clarendon, was the eighth in descent from this Sir Robert Hyde.*

* See note in Lister's Life of Clarendon, vol. i. p. 2.