Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Taylor, John (1580-1653)
TAYLOR, JOHN (1580–1653), the ‘water poet’ as he called himself, born of humble parentage at Gloucester on 24 Aug. 1580, was sent to the grammar school there, but getting ‘mired’ in his Latin accidence, as he tells us in his ‘Motto,’ was apprenticed to a London waterman. He was subsequently pressed into the navy, and served in the fleet under the Earl of Essex, being present at the siege of Cadiz in 1596, and at Flores, in the Islands' or Azores' voyage, in 1597. According to his own account (Pennyles Pilgrimage) he made prior to 1603 sixteen voyages in the queen's ships during the ‘seven times at sea I served Eliza queen.’ On retiring from the service, with a ‘lame leg,’ he became a Thames waterman. For about fourteen years he was a collector of the perquisite of wine exacted by the lieutenant of the Tower from all ships which brought wines up the river, but was discharged from the place some time before 1622 because he refused to buy it (Taylors Farewell). His good humour, ready wit, and keen intelligence made him popular with his brethren, whose rights he was always ready to defend, even to the length of petitioning the king in person, or approaching the formidable Long parliament. For a few years he managed to pick up a living on the river, but about the middle of James I's reign he complains in various pamphlets that his ‘poor trade’ was being ruined from the excessive number of watermen, the increasing use of coaches, which he calls ‘hired hackney-hell carts,’ and the removal of the theatres from the Surrey side of the river. Taylor therefore sought to increase his earnings by turning to account his knack of easy rhyming. He was ready at the shortest notice and on the most reasonable terms to celebrate any one of the three principal events in human life—with a birthday ode, epithalamium, or funeral elegy. Various wagering journeys were also undertaken by him with the same object, and as he was an acute observer of character, custom, and incident, and could express himself in rollicking prose as well as rhyme, his descriptive tours were largely subscribed for when issued in book form. Previous to starting on any journey it was Taylor's custom to issue a vast number of prospectuses, or ‘Taylor's bills’ as he called them, announcing the conditions under which he travelled, in the hope of inducing his friends either to pay down a sum of money at once, or to sign their names as promising to do so on the completion of the ‘adventure.’ Most of his brochures were printed at his own cost, and were ‘presented’ by him to distinguished persons. In this way he acquired not only money but numerous patrons of all degrees. Ben Jonson, Nicholas Breton, Samuel Rowlands, Thomas Dekker, and other men of genius took kindly notice of him. Both court and city seem to have been highly diverted by the boisterous insolence with which Taylor persistently assailed Thomas Coryate [q. v.] in his earlier pasquinades. In the ‘Sculler,’ 1612, Coryate was so ‘nipt, galled, and bitten,’ that he vowed revenge. To make ‘amends,’ as he said, Taylor next issued a little pamphlet bearing the innocent-sounding title of ‘Laugh and be Fat,’ 1613, but in reality a clever burlesque of the ‘Odcombian Banquet.’ This attack was more than Coryate could bear. He therefore moved the ‘superiour powers’ with such effect that Taylor's skit was ordered to be burnt. In these writings, both on Coryate and others, Taylor denied that he intended either harm or injury; and his ‘Farewell’ to Coryate appended to his ‘Praise of Hemp-seed,’ 1620, is not destitute of good feeling.
In 1613 Taylor was commissioned to arrange the details of the water pageant on the Thames at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth (Remembrancia, ed. Overall, p. 411), by whom he was afterwards kindly entertained in Bohemia. He also composed the triumphs at the grand water procession of Lord-mayor Parkhurst in 1634 (Humpherus, Watermen's Company, i. 225), and the pageant with which Lord-mayor Gurney welcomed Charles I on his return from Scotland in 1641 (Fleay, Biogr. Chron. of Engl. Drama, ii. 260). Taylor visited the continent in 1616, and gave the result of his wanderings in a volume published the following year with a ludicrous dedication to ‘Sir’ Thomas Coryate, of whose ‘Crudities’ it is a travesty. In 1618 he undertook to travel on foot from London to Edinburgh without taking a penny in his pocket, nor ‘begging, borrowing, or asking meat, drink, or lodging.’ He went, however, far beyond Edinburgh, penetrating even to the wilds of Braemar, and there he became the guest of the Earl of Mar at a hunting encampment among the hills (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. pp. xxii, 533). The sport inspired him with two sonnets. On his return to Leith he met Ben Jonson, who, although suspecting that Taylor's intention might be to turn his own expedition into ridicule, gave him a piece of gold ‘of two-and-twenty shillings’ wherewith to drink his health in England (Masson, Drummond of Hawthornden, pp. 88–91). Having previously obtained sixteen hundred names for his account of this tour, which he called ‘The Pennyles Pilgrimage’ (1618), Taylor felt justified in having forty-five hundred copies printed; but more than half the subscribers refused to pay on the ground that Taylor had not observed the conditions of the journey. Thereupon Taylor lashed the ‘defaulters’ to his heart's content in a diverting satire called ‘A Kicksey Winsey’ (1619). Another of his eccentric freaks was to start one Saturday evening along with a vintner on a voyage from London to Queenborough in Kent, in a brown-paper boat with two stockfish tied to two canes for oars; before he and his companion had covered three miles the paper bottom fell to pieces; though they ultimately reached their destination on Monday morning more dead than alive. Shortly after this Taylor fulfilled a wagering journey to Bohemia (1620), and at Prague enjoyed the queen's bounty; he also had her youngest son, Prince Rupert, in his arms, and brought away the infant's shoes as a memento of his visit. In 1622 another whimsical journey from London to York was undertaken by him. On his way thither by sea, being forced by stress of weather to land at Cromer in Norfolk, he and his four companions were mistaken for pirates and put under custody, while guards were set over their wherry. In 1623 he made a somewhat similar voyage to Salisbury, which he describes as the worst or the best for ‘toyle, travail, and danger’ he had yet made. Many other such journeys were made to various parts, each one resulting in a booklet with an odd title.
In 1625, the plague being epidemic in London, Taylor sought safety at Oxford, and was there allowed a lodging in Oriel College. He employed this period of enforced leisure in study. Upon the outbreak of the civil war in 1642, he again retired to Oxford, ‘where,’ says Wood, ‘he was much esteemed by the court and poor remnant of scholars for his facetious company.’ Here he kept a public-house and tried to serve the royal cause by penning lampoons against the parliamentarians. The king made him a yeoman of the guard.
When Oxford surrendered in June 1645, Taylor returned to London and took the Crown (now the Ship), a public-house in Phœnix Alley (rechristened Hanover Court), Long Acre. After the king's execution he converted his sign into the Mourning Crown, but that being esteemed ‘malignant’ he hung up his own portrait for the Poet's Head in its stead, with this inscription:
There's many a head stands for a sign,
Then, gentle Reader, why not mine?
On the other side:
Though I deserve not, I desire
The laurel wreath, the poet's hire.
A portrait of Taylor is at Watermen's Hall, which shows him, as Wood remarks, to have been of a ‘quick and smart countenance.’ Another picture of him is in the Bodleian Library, to which it was presented in 1655 by the artist, his nephew, John Taylor, a portrait-painter practising at Oxford; this has been engraved. The nephew's portrait, painted by himself, is also in the Bodleian, and has also been engraved. A whole-length portrait of Taylor is before his ‘Memorial of all the English Monarchs,’ 1622; and there is a small oval head of him by Thomas Cockson in the engraved title-page to his ‘Works,’ 1630.
Although Taylor complacently styled himself the ‘king's water-poet’ and the ‘queen's waterman,’ he can at best be only regarded as a literary bargee. As literature his books—many of them coarse and brutal—are contemptible; but his pieces accurately mirror his age, and are of great value to the historian and antiquary.
Taylor published a collective and revised edition of his writings in 1630, with the title, ‘All the Workes of Iohn Taylor the Water Poet, being 63 in number.’ This goodly but disorderly folio, which had to be set up at the presses of four different printers, and has long been a bibliographical rarity, was reprinted by the Spenser Society in three parts, folio, 1868–9. Others of his tracts not comprised in the folio were reprinted by the same society in five parts, quarto, 1870–8. Twenty-one of his more readable pieces were issued in a massive octavo, under the editorship of Charles Hindley, in 1872. A further selection was issued by Hindley in vol. iii. of his ‘Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana,’ 8vo, 1873. Another popular edition, containing thirteen of his ‘Early Prose and Poetical Works,’ appeared in 1888, 8vo.
Taylor had a host of imitators, and to distinguish his work from theirs is no easy task. Indeed, one of his antagonists, John Booker [q. v.], in an anonymous attack on him called ‘A Rope Treble-twisted’ (1644), insinuated that royalist pamphleteers made use of Taylor's name in order to attract attention to their own lampoons on the roundheads.
In the following bibliography all Taylor's works included in the folio edition of 1630 are distinguished by a capital F at the end of each title, while the other pieces reprinted by the Spenser Society have an asterisk prefixed. Unless otherwise stated all were printed at London: 1. ‘The Scoller … or Gallimawfry of Sonnets, Satyres, and Epigrams,’ 4to, 1612 (with woodcut of Taylor rowing in a boat); another edit. entitled ‘Taylor's Water-Worke,’ 4to, 1614 (F). 2. ‘Greate Brittaine All in Blacke for the … losse of Henry, our late worthy Prince’ (in verse), 4to, 1612 (a portion of the work reprinted in F). 3. ‘Heauens Blessing and Earths Joy,’ 2 pts. 4to, 1613; prose and verse in commemoration of the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth (F); also reprinted in Somers's ‘Tracts’ (4th edit. 1809), vol. iii., and in Nichols's ‘Progresses of James I,’ ii. 527. 4. ‘The Trve Cavse of the Watermens Suit concerning Players,’ 4to [1613?] (F). ‘The Eighth Wonder of the World, or Coriats Escape from his supposed Drowning’ (in verse), 8vo, 1613 (F). 6. ‘Odcomb's Complaint; or Coriat's funerall Epicedium … Dedicated to … Don Archibald Armstrong’ (in verse), 8vo, 1613 (F). 7. ‘The Nipping or Snipping of Abvses’ (in verse), 4to, 1614 (F). *8. ‘Fair and fowle weather’ (in verse), 1615. 9. ‘Taylor's Vrania … with … the thirteene Sieges … of Iervsalem’ (in verse), 2 pts. 8vo, 1616 (F). 10. ‘Laugh and be Fat, or a Commentary upon the Odcombyan Banket’ (in verse and prose), 8vo, 1613? or 1615 (F). 11. ‘Taylors Revenge, or the Rymer William Fennor firkt, ferrited, and finely fecht over the coales’ (in verse), 1615 (F). In the folio edition ‘Fennors Defence’ (in verse) is added. Fennor was a rival wit of Taylor's own rank and fashion, of whom he was comically jealous. 12. ‘A Cast over the Water by John Taylor given gratis to William Fennor, the Rimer’ (in verse), 8vo [1615], (F). 13. ‘The Dolphins Danger and Deliverance’ [1616?] (F). A narrative of a fight at sea between the Dolphin and six Turkish men-of-war. 14. ‘Three Weekes, three daies, and three houres Observations and Travell from London to Hambvrgh in Germanie,’ 4to, 1617 (F); reprinted in Charles Hindley's ‘Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana,’ vol. iii. 8vo, 1873. Ludicrously dedicated to ‘Sir’ Thomas Coryat. 15. ‘The Booke of Martyrs’ (in verse), 1617. This, from its diminutive size, 1½ inch by 1 inch, is termed a ‘Thumb-book;’ reprinted in the folio of 1630; 64mo, 1639; and again in 5 vols. 64mo, 1765. 16. ‘The Pennyles Pilgrimage, or the Money-lesse perambulation … from London to Edenborough’ (in prose and verse), 4to, 1618 (F). 17. ‘A Briefe Remembrance of all the English Monarchs’ (in verse and prose), 8vo, 1618, and again in 1622 (F). With twenty-five execrable half-length portraits of the sovereigns. 18. ‘A Memoriall of all the English Monarchs’ (in verse), 8vo, 1622; another edit. 1630 (F). 19. ‘A Kicksey Winsey; or a Lerry Come-Twang’ (in verse), 8vo, 1619; another edit. with many alterations, as ‘The Scourge of Basenesse,’ 1624. 20. ‘The Praise of Hemp-Seed, with the voyage of Mr. Roger Bird and the Writer hereof … from London to Quinborough in Kent. As also a Farewell to the Matchless deceased Mr. Thomas Coriat’ (in verse), 4to, 1620; another edit. 1623 (F). 21. ‘Iack a Lent, his Beginning and Entertainment;’ black letter, 4to, 1620; another edit., ‘with new additions,’ 1620 (F). 22. ‘Fill Gut and Pinch Belly’ (a broadside in verse), 1620. 23. ‘Taylor his Trauels from … London … to Prague in Bohemia’ (in mingled verse and prose), 4to, 1620. 24. ‘An English-Mans Love to Bohemia’ (in verse, 4to, Dort [London], 1620 (F). 25. ‘The Muses Movrning … or Funerall Sonnets on the Death of Iohn Moray, Esquire,’ 8vo [1620?] (F). 26. ‘The Life and Death of the … Virgin Mary’ (in verse), 8vo, 1620; another edit. 1622 (F). 27. ‘The Colde Tearme … or the Metamorphosis of the River of Thames,’ s. sh. fol. [1621]; a ballad ascribed to Taylor. 28. ‘Taylor's Goose: describing the Wilde Goose,’ &c., (in verse), 1621 (F). 29. ‘The Subjects Joy for the Parliament;’ a broadside of 112 lines [1621]. 30. ‘Taylor's Motto: et Habeo, et Careo, et Curo’ (in verse, with an engraved title depicting Taylor standing on a rock), 8vo, 1621 (F). The title is a travesty of that of a poem by George Wither, called ‘Wither's Motto: Nec Habeo,’ published in 1618, and again in 1621. 31. ‘The Praise of Antiquity and the Commodity of Beggery’ (in verse and prose), 4to, 1621 (F). 32. ‘Superbiæ Flagellum, or the Whip of Pride’ (‘A Few Lines … against the Scandalous Aspersions … vpon the Poets and Poems of these Times’), (in verse), 8vo, 1621 (F). 33. ‘The Vnaturall Father: or the cruell Murther committed by one Iohn Rowse,’ 4to, 1621 (F); reprinted in C. Hindley's ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.,’ loc. cit. 34. ‘Sir Gregory Nonsense His Newes from no place’ (in verse), 8vo, 1700 [sic], i.e. 1622; reprinted in C. Hindley's ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.,’ loc. cit. (F). 35. ‘The Great O Toole’ (in verse), with a well-engraved portrait of ‘Arthurus Severus O Toole Nonesuch: ætatis 80,’ 8vo, 1622 (F). 36. ‘A Shilling, or the Trauailes of Twelue pence’ (in verse), 8vo [1622] (F). 37. ‘A Common Whore’ (in verse), 8vo, 1622; another edit. 1625 (F). 38. ‘An Arrant Thiefe’ (in verse), 8vo, 1622; other edits. in 1625 and 1635 (F). 39. ‘Taylors Farewell to the Tower Bottles’ (in verse), 8vo, Dort [London], 1622 (F). 40. ‘The Water-Cormorant his Complaint against a Brood of Land-Cormorants … fourteene Satyres’ (in verse), 4to, 1622 (F). 41. ‘A Very Merry Wherry-Ferry-Voyage; or Yorke for my Money’ (in verse), 8vo, 1622 (F); reprinted in C. Hindley's ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.,’ loc. cit.; another edit. 1623, ‘whereunto is annexed a very pleasant Description of … O Toole the Great.’ 42. ‘The Praise and Vertue of a Jayle and Jaylers’ (in verse), 8vo, 1623 (F). 43. ‘A New Discovery by Sea, with a Wherry from London to Salisbury,’ 1623 (F) (in verse and prose); reprinted in the ‘Crypt,’ new ser., No. vi., and in C. Hindley's ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.,’ loc. cit. 44. ‘Prince Charles His Welcome from Spaine in 1623’ (prose and verse), 1623 (F). 45. ‘Honour Conceal'd, strangdly reveal'd; or the worthy Praise of … Archibald Armstrong’ (in verse), 1623 (F). 46. ‘The World runnes on Wheeles’ (in prose), 8vo, 1623 (in F) and 1635. 47. ‘Taylors Pastorell … or the noble antiquitie of Shepheards, with the profitable vse of Sheepe’ (mostly in verse), 4to, 1624 (F). 48. ‘True Loving Sorrow attired in a Robe of Griefe; presented upon the … Funerall of the … Duke of Richmond and Lennox’ (a broadside in verse), 1624 (F). 49. ‘The Scourge of Basenesse,’ 8vo, 1624 (F). This is another edit. of Taylor's ‘A Kicksey Winsey,’ &c., 1619, containing a list of new ‘Defaulters’ on account of his subsequent ‘Adventures,’ with the same woodcut representing his ‘slip'rie debters.’ 50. ‘The Praise of Cleane Linnen’ (in verse), 1624 (F). 51. ‘For the Sacred Memoriall of … Charles Howard, Earle of Nottingham’ (in verse), 1625 (F). 52. ‘A Liuing Sadnes, in duty consecrated to the Immortall Memory of … James, King of Great Britaine’ (in verse), 4to, 1625 (F). *53. ‘The Fearefull Sommer,’ 8vo, Oxford, 1625; another edit. the same year (F); another edit., ‘with some Editions [sic] concerning … 1636,’ 4to, London, 1636 (this has been reprinted by the Spenser Society): a description in verse and prose of two outbreaks of the plague in London. 54. ‘A Funerall Elegie … in memory of Lancelot [Andrewes], Bishop of Winchester,’ 1626. 55. ‘A Funerall Elegy deploring the Death of John Ramsey, Earle of Holdernesse,’ 1626. 56. ‘A Warning for Swearers’ (in verse), 1626. A large broadside in two columns intended to be ‘hung up in every house.’ It is, however, frequently found appended to ‘The Fearefull Sommer,’ 1625; another edit. as ‘Christian Admonitions,’ 1629 (F). 57. ‘An Armado, or Nauye of 103 Ships,’ 8vo, 1627 (F); another edit. 1635. 58. ‘A Famous Fight at Sea, where foure English Ships … and Foure Dutch Ships fought … against 8 Portugall Gallions and 32 Friggots,’ 1627 (F). 59. ‘Wit and Mirth … fashioned into clinches, bulls, quirkes, yerkes, quips, and jerkes’ [numbered 1 to 138], black letter, 1629 (F); reprinted in vol. iii. of W. Carew Hazlitt's ‘Old English Jest-Books,’ 8vo, 1864; another edit. abridged from the above, ‘being 113 pleasant Tales and Witty Jests,’ 1635. 60. ‘The Great Eater of Kent … Nicholas Wood of Harrisom,’ 1630 (F); reprinted in C. Hindley's ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.’ loc. cit. 61. ‘A Dogge of Warre, or, the Travels of Drunkard’ (chiefly in verse) [1630] (F). 62. ‘A Meditation on the Passion,’ 1630; a broadside in verse. *63. ‘A Bawd, a vertuous Bawd, a modest Bawd’ (in verse and prose), printed in the folio edition, 1630; another edit. 8vo, 1635, has been printed by the Spenser Society. 64. ‘Master Thomas Coriats Commendations to his Friends in England,’ 1630 (F). 65. ‘The Churches Deliverances, from … 1565 until the present’ 1630, in verse (F). 66. ‘Verbum Sempiternum (Salvator Mundi).’ Summaries in verse of the Old and New Testament, 2 pts. 64mo, 1616 (F 1630); also edits. in 1670 (Aberdeen); 1693; 3rd edit. (1700?); an edit. 1720, a reprint of 1693 and another 1818. Reprinted as the ‘Thumb Bible’ from 1720 edit. in 1849 and again in 1889. One of the smallest books, 2 in. long by 15/8 in. wide. *67. ‘The Suddaine Turne of ffortunes wheele’ (in verse), 1631; reprinted by the Spenser Society from the ‘original manuscript’ then (1871) in the possession of the Rev. Thomas Corser [q. v.]; also by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps in ‘Contributions to Early English Literature,’ 4to, 1849. Another manuscript is in the library of the University of Cambridge (Cat. ii. 487), and a modern transcript is Egerton MS. 2398 in the British Museum. 68. ‘Taylor on Thame Isis’ (in verse), 8vo, 1632. 69. ‘The Triumphs of Fame and Honour: at the Inauguration of Robert Parkhurst, clothworker,’ 1634. 70. ‘The Coaches overthrow,’ a black-letter ballad attributed to Taylor, 2 pts. s. sh. fol. 1635? 70a. ‘A most Horrible, Terrible, Tollerable, Termagant Satyre’ [1635], 8vo. *71. ‘The Old, Old, Very Old Man: or The Age and long Life of Thomas Par’ (in verse), 4to, 1635; another edit. same year; ‘third’ edit. 4to [1700?]; reprinted in vol. vii. of ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ 4to, 1774, &c.; in James Caulfield's ‘Edition of Curious Tracts,’ 8vo, 1794; and in C. Hindley's ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.’ loc. cit; a Dutch translation by ‘H. H.,’ 4to, Delft, 1636 [see Parr, Thomas]. *72. ‘John Taylor the Water-Poet's Travels through London to Visit all the Taverns,’ 1636; another edit., as ‘Taylor's Travels and Circvlar Perambulation through … London and Westminster,’ 8vo, 1636, has been reprinted by the Spenser Society from the unique copy in the Huth Library. *73. ‘The Honorable and Memorable Foundations … and Ruines of divers Cities, Townes, Castles … within ten Shires … of this Kingdome,’ 12mo, 1636; reprinted by the Spenser Society from the copy in the Huth Library (there is another copy of this rare book in the British Museum); another edit., as ‘A Catalogue of the Honorable and Memorable Foundations,’ &c., 1636. 74. ‘The Brave and Memorable Sea-Fight neere the Road of Tittawan in Barbary,’ 1636. *75. ‘The Carriers Cosmographia, or a briefe relation of the Innes … in and neere London,’ 4to, 1637; reprinted as No. 11 of Edmund William Ashbee's ‘Occasional Fac-simile Reprints,’ 4to, 1869; also in vol. i. of Professor Edward Arber's ‘An English Garner,’ 8vo, 1877. *76. ‘Drinke and welcome: or, the Famovs Historie of … Drinks’ (in prose and verse), 4to, 1637: reprinted as No. 17 of Ashbee's ‘Occasional Fac-simile Reprints,’ 4to, 1871. *77. ‘Bull, Beare, and Horse, Cut, Curtaile, and Longtaile’ (in verse and prose), 12mo, 1638. The only perfect copy known appears to be in the Bodleian Library among Malone's books. 78. ‘A Iuniper Lecture … the second Impression,’ 12mo, 1639; 3rd edit. 1652. 79. ‘Divers Crabtree Lectures,’ 12mo, 1639; a copy is in the Bodleian Library. A reply to this and the ‘Juniper Lecture’ appeared in 1640 with the title ‘The Womens sharpe Revenge.’ *80. ‘Taylors Feast: contayning Twenty-seaven Dishes of meate,’ 12mo, 1638; a most curious little book in prose, the only known copy being in the Huth Library. *81. ‘A sad … Elegy consecrated to the living memory of … M. Richard Wyan deceased,’ 1638; a broadsheet. *82. ‘Part of this Summers Travels, or News from Hell, Hull, and Hallifax,’ &c., 8vo, 1639; reprinted in C. Hindley's ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.’ loc. cit.). *83. ‘The Needles Excellency … with a Poem by John Taylor in Praise of the Needle,’ obl. 4to, 1640; apparently the 12th edit. ‘inlarged.’ *84. ‘A Valorous and Perillous Sea-fight fought with three Turkish Ships … by the good ship Elizabeth,’ 4to, 1640. *85. ‘Differing Worships, or the Oddes, betweene some Knights Service and God's’ (in verse), 4to, 1640. *86. ‘Iohn Taylors last Voyage … with a Scullers Boate from … London to … Hereford,’ 8vo, 1641. *87. ‘A Swarme of Sectaries and Schismatiqves’ (in verse), 4to, 1641. *88. ‘A Reply … to … a Swarme of Schismatiqves,’ 4to, 1641; a satire in verse against Henry Walker, who had ventured to answer Taylor's ‘Swarm of Sectaries.’ *89. ‘Religious Enemies,’ with a woodcut on title of the sectaries tossing the Bible in a blanket, 4to, 1641. *90. ‘A Pedlar and a Romish Priest, in a very hot Discourse’ (in verse), 4to, 1641; (reprinted 8vo, 1699). This is an appropriation of the ‘Pack Man's Paternoster,’ by Sir James Sempill [q. v.] (cf. Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xi. 241). A manuscript copy is in Harleian MS. 7332, ff. 182–97, where the authorship is ascribed to Taylor. *91. ‘The Irish Footman's Poetry, 4to, 1641 … the Author George Richardson, an Hibernian Pedestrian’ (in verse); another lampoon upon Henry Walker; reprinted in ‘Fugitive Tracts,’ 2nd ser. 4to, 1875. *92. ‘The Liar,’ 4to, 1641. *93. ‘The complaint of M. Tenter-hooke, the Proiector, and Sir Thomas Dodger, the Patentee,’ s. sh. fol., 1641; a broadsheet in verse, with a quaint woodcut. *94. ‘The Hellish Parliament: being a Counter-Parliament to this in England,’ 4to, 1641. *95. ‘Some small and simple Reasons … by Aminadab Blower … against … the Liturgy’; four leaves in 4to, the authorship of which is doubtfully ascribed to Taylor. *96. ‘Englands Comfort and Londons Ioy: expressed in the royall … Entertainment of … King Charles at his … returne from Scotland,’ 4to, 1641, embellished with woodcuts; the ‘Verses’ at the end were presented by Taylor ‘to the king's own hand.’ *97. ‘A Tale in a Tub, or a Tub Lecture … by My-heele Mendsoale,’ 4to, 1641. *98. ‘To the Right Honorable Assembly … the Humble Petition of the … Company of Watermen,’ 4to, 1641; another edit. dated 1642. *99. ‘A Delicate … Dialogue between the Deuill and a Jesuite’ (in verse), 4to, 1642. *100. ‘The Devil turn'd Round-Head,’ 4to [1642]; answered by ‘Ambulatoria’ in ‘Tayler's Physicke,’ dated 1641. *101. ‘An Apology for Private Preaching,’ 4to [1642]. *102. ‘An Honest Answer to the late published Apologie for Private Preaching,’ 4to [1642]. *103. ‘An humble desired Union betweene Prerogative and Priviledge,’ 4to, 1642. *104. ‘Iohn Taylors Manifestation and ivst vindication against Iosva Chvrch his Exclamation,’ 4to, 1642 (Church was a hostile waterman). *105. ‘The VVhole Life and Progresse of Henry Walker the Ironmonger,’ 4to, 1642; reprinted in C. Hindley's ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.,’ loc. cit. 106. ‘A Seasonable Lecture … disburthened from Henry Walker. Taken in short writing by Thorney Ailo’ [anagram of Iohn Taylor], 4to, 1642. *107. ‘Heads of all Fashions’ (in verse, with a large woodcut representing seventeen heads, though twenty are described), 4to, 1642; reprinted by E. W. Ashbee, 4to, 1871. *108. ‘Mad Fashions, Od Fashions, All Out of Fashions’ (in verse), 4to, 1642; reprinted by E. W. Ashbee, 4to, 1871, and by C. Hindley in ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.,’ loc. cit. *109. ‘A Cluster of Coxcombes … the Donatists, Publicans, Disciplinarians, Anabaptists, and Brownists,’ 4to, 1642. *110. ‘A full … Answer against the Writer of … “A Tale in a Tub,” … by Thorny Ailo … with verses on … Cheap-side Crosse,’ 4to, 1642. *111. ‘A Plea for Prerogative … by Thorny Aylo’ (in verse), 4to, 1642. 112. ‘The Apprentices Advice to the XII Bishops’ (in verse), 4to, 1642. *113. ‘Aqua-Musæ: or Cacafogo, Cacadæmon, Captain George Wither Wrung in the Withers (in verse). Printed in the fourth Yeare of the Grand Rebellion,’ 4to [Oxford, 1643]. A reply to Wither's ‘Campo-Musæ.’ *114. ‘Truth's Triumph … in the Gracious Preservation of … the King’ (in verse), 1643. *115. ‘Mercvrivs Aqvaticvs; or, the Water-Poet's Answer to … Mercvrivs Britanicus … An Elegie on Master Pym,’ 4to, 1643. 116. ‘A Preter-plvperfect spick and span new Nocturnall,’ 4to [Oxford, 1643]. *117. ‘The Conversion … of a … Roundhead,’ 4to, 1643. *118. ‘A Letter sent to London from a Spie at Oxford,’ 4to, 1643. *119. ‘Crop-Eare Curried … the pruining of Prinnes two last Parricidicall Pamphlets,’ 4to [Oxford], 1644; a vigorous onslaught upon Prynne's ‘Sovereign Power of Parliament’ and ‘Opening of the New Great Seal.’ *120. ‘Mercurivs Infernalis; or Orderlesse Orders, Votes, Ordinances, and Commands from Hell,’ 4to, 1644. *121. ‘No “Mercvrivs Avlicvs,”’ 4to [Oxford], 1644; a reply to John Booker's ‘No “Mercurius Aquaticus,”’ 1644. *122. ‘Iohn Taylor being yet unhanged sends greeting to Iohn Booker that hanged him lately,’ 4to, 1644; Booker answered in ‘A Rope Treble-twisted,’ 1644, but anonymously. 123. ‘Ad Populum; or, a Lecture to the People,’ 4to, 1644. *124. ‘Mad Verse, Sad Verse, Glad Verse, and Bad Verse,’ 4to [Oxford], 1644. *125. ‘The Generall Complaint of the most oppressed, distressed Commons of England’ [no date]. *126. ‘Rebells Anathematized and Anatomized … a satyricall Salutation to … Pulpit-praters’ (in verse), 4to [Oxford], 1645. *127. ‘The Cavses of the Diseases and Distempers of this Kingdom,’ 4to [Oxford], 1645. *128. ‘Oxford besiedged, surprised, taken, and pitifully entred,’ 4to, 1645. *129. ‘A most learned and eloquent Speech spoken … in the House of Commons by … Miles Corbet … revised by John Taylor,’ 4to [Oxford, 1645]. 130. ‘A Briefe Relation of the Gleanings of the Idiotismes and Absurdities of Miles Corbet. … By Antho. Roily,’ 1646, 4to. 131. ‘The Complaint of Christmas,’ 4to [Oxford, 1646]; a satire in prose. 132. ‘A Recommendation to Mercurius Morbicus’ [i.e. Henry Walker], 4to, 1647; an anonymous tract, undoubtedly by Taylor. 133. ‘The World Turn'd Upside Down,’ 4to, 1647. *134. ‘The Kings VVelcome to his owne House … Hampton Covrt’ (in verse), 4to, 1647; reprinted in C. Hindley's ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.,’ loc. cit. *135. ‘The Noble Cavalier characterised and a Rebellious Caviller cavterised’ [no place or date]. *136. ‘Tailors Travels from London to the Isle of Wight,’ 4to [1648]; reprinted in J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps's ‘Literature of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Illustrated,’ 4to, 1851. *137. ‘ἹΠΠ-ANΘΡΩΠΟΣ: or, An Ironicall Expostulation with Death … for the Losse of the late Lord Mayor of London’ (in verse), 4to, 1648; also printed as a broadside. 138. ‘The Wonder of a Kingdome, dedicated to Junto at Westminster,’ 4to, 1648. *139. ‘John Taylors VVandering to see the VVonders of the VVest,’ 4to, 1649; reprinted by E. W. Ashbee, 4to, 1649, and by C. Hindley in ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.,’ loc. cit. *140. ‘The Number and Names of all the Kings of England and Scotland,’ 8vo, 1649; another edit. 1650. 141. ‘Mercurius Pacificus: with a diligent search … for peace,’ 4to [1650]; attributed to Taylor. 142. ‘A late weary merry Voyage and Journey … from London to Gravesend … to Cambridge,’ 1650. *143. ‘Taylors Arithmeticke, from one to twelve’ (in verse), 4to [undated]; other edits. 1650 and 1653. 144. ‘Alterations strange, Of various Signes, Here are compos'd, A few Poetick Lines,’ 1651. *145. ‘Ale Ale-vated into the Ale-titude,’ 8vo, 1651; and again in 1652, 1653, and 1656. In prose but at the end are inserted the lines by Thomas Randolph (1605–1635) [q. v.] called ‘The Ex-Ale-tation of Ale.’ *146. ‘Ranters of both Sexes, Male and Female,’ 4to, 1651. *147. ‘Epigrammes … being ninety in number, besides two new made Satyres,’ 8vo, 1651. 148. ‘Newes from Tenebris; or preter-pluperfect nocturnall or night Worke,’ 1652. *149. ‘Christmas In and Ovt,’ 8vo, 1652. 150. ‘Misselanies; or fifty years gatherings out of sundry Authors,’ 1652, 8vo. 151. ‘The Impartiallest Satyre that ever was seen’ [anon.], 1652, 4to; another edit. 1653, 8vo. 152. ‘The Names of all the Dukes, Marquesses, &c., in England, Scotland, and Ireland,’ 1653. 153. ‘Nonsence upon Sence, or Sence upon Nonsence’ [no place or date]. 154. ‘A dreadful Battle between a Taylor and a Louse,’ 2 pts. s. sh. fol. [1653?]; a black-letter ballad signed ‘J. Taylor.’ *155. ‘The Essence … of Nonsence upon Sence,’ &c. (in verse), 8vo, 1653. *156. ‘A Short Relation of a Long Iourney made round or ovall by encompassing the Principalitie of Wales’ [1652, usually assigned to 1653]; privately reprinted by J. O. Halliwell-Phillips, 4to, 1852; also by C. Hindley in ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.,’ loc. cit. *157. ‘The Certain Travailes of an uncertain Journey’ (in verse and prose), 8vo, 1653; reprinted in C. Hindley's ‘Misc. Antiq. Angl.,’ loc. cit.
Taylor may possibly be identical with the author of the preface to Gerard Winstanley's ‘True Levellers' Standard advanced,’ 4to, 1649.
He is also said to have written verses accompanying ‘Two Pictures of Lent and Shrovetide,’ 1636; ‘Wee be seauen,’ 1637; ‘An Elegie upon the Death of Beniamin Johnson’ [sic], 1637; ‘Newes from the great Mogull,’ 1638; ‘Most fearefull Signes and Sightes seene in the Ayre in Germany,’ 1638; ‘The Contention between French Hood, Felt Hatt,’ 1638; ‘A most horrible … Satyre,’ 1639; ‘The Deluding World,’ 1639; ‘A Dialogue … [on] the Downe fall of Monopolies,’ 1639; ‘A Discourse betweene the Beggar, the theife, and the Hangman,’ 1639; ‘A Dialogue between Life and Death,’ 1639; ‘Certain Verses vpon the warlike Fight of the Spaniards and Dutchmen,’ 1639; ‘Certain verses vpon the Fast,’ 1640; but of these pieces no copies are apparently extant.
Manuscript verses by him ‘On Copt Hall’ and ‘To Sir John Fearne’ are in the possession of Earl De la Warr (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 302); but he is erroneously described as being the author of certain manuscript songs in the library of Trinity College, Dublin (ib. p. 594).
[Taylor's Works; Arber's Stationers' Registers; Hindley's Introd. to Taylor's Works, 1872; Hazlitt's Handbook; Hazlitt's Bibliographical Collections; Allibone's Dict.; Humpherus's Hist. of the Company of Watermen, vol. i.; Collier's Bibl. Account of Early English Literature; Southey's Preface to the Poems of John Jones; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 764, 852; Granger's Biogr. Hist. of Engl. (2nd edit.), ii. 18; Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Brit. Portraits, p. 103; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Huth Library Cat.; Lemon's Cat. of Broadsides in Soc. Antiq.; Fleay's Chron. Hist. of Lond. Stage, pp. 378, 422; Tom Coryate, and Forks, an admirable paper by E. Green, F.S.A., in Proc. of Somerset Archæolog. and Nat. Hist. Soc. vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 24–47; Notes and Queries, passim; Masson's Life of Milton, vol. i.]