“Dear Sir,—You fall into the same misconceptions, which I have often found in other men of very good sense, by wishing to introduce into an inscription, matter, which is more adapted to biography.”—“Excellent as may be the books which Dr. Taylor wrote in the retired situation, of which you speak, we must be content with what I have generally said of him, as a learned man.”—“Dr. Taylor was, I doubt not, a sincere and strenuous advocate for liberty, civil and religious. But he is not much known to the public, by his political tenets; and on looking at the epitaph, I find that the mention of those tenets would most offensively derange the order, in which I have enumerated his moral qualities, his literary performances, his pastoral labours, and that theology which made him a defender of simple and uncorrupted religion.”—“I hesitated a little about inserting the year, in which the chapel was founded; and a chapel it is called by those, who frequent it; and a chapel I shall continue to call it. You non-cons have done well to exchange the word meeting-house for chapel;
1 The writer had once the pleasure of introducing to the hospitalities of Hatton Parsonage another descendant of this learned divine, Edgar Taylor, Esq. of London. Dr. Parr was pleased with his guest, and talked to him much, in a high panegyrical strain, of his great ancestor; expatiating on the virtues of his character, the depth of his learning, and the value of his writings. |
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