value, and its income consists much of voluntary contributions’ (Letters, ed. Hill, ii. 397). Although Taylor was possessed of large resources, both official and private—amounting in all, so it was rumoured, to 7,000l. per annum—and never voluntarily paid a debt, he always hankered after better preferments.
Taylor spent much time at his family residence at Ashbourne. He became J.P. for Derbyshire on 6 Oct. 1761, and thenceforth was known as ‘the King of Ashbourne.’ Through life he maintained his friendship with Johnson. Johnson was at Ashbourne in 1737 and 1740, and in the thirteen years from 1767 to 1779 only thrice failed to visit Taylor. He acted in 1749 as mediator in the quarrel of Garrick and Johnson over the play of ‘Irene.’ He read the service at Johnson's funeral.
Johnson loved him, and considered him ‘a very sensible, acute man,’ with a strong mind; but his talk was of bullocks, and his habits were ‘by no means sufficiently clerical.’ Taylor owned the finest breed of milch-cows in Derbyshire, and perhaps in England. His ‘great bull’ is a constant subject of jest in Johnson's letters. Boswell and the doctor came to Ashbourne on 26 March 1776, driving from Lichfield in Taylor's ‘large roomy postchaise, drawn by four stout plump horses, and driven by two steady jolly postilions.’ The house and establishment accorded with this description, and their host's ‘size and figure and countenance and manner were that of a hearty English squire, with the parson superinduced.’
Taylor died at Ashbourne on 29 Feb. 1788, and was buried in Ashbourne church, tradition says in the nave, on 3 March. His second wife was Mary, daughter of Roger Tuckfield of Fulford, Devonshire. They did not live together happily, and in August 1763 she left him.
Taylor, who had no child that lived, disappointed his nieces by leaving all his property—1,200l. a year besides personalty—to a boy, William Brunt (b. 1772), who had been engaged as a page. It was stipulated that the legatee should take the name of Webster, which had long been connected with this family of Taylor.
Taylor published in 1787 ‘A Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D., on the subject of a Future State,’ which was inscribed to the Duke of Devonshire, at whose command it was issued. It is said to have been drawn up at Johnson's request, and with reference to his remark that ‘he would prefer a state of torment to that of annihilation.’ Appended to it were three letters by Dr. Johnson. After Taylor's death there came out—volume i. in 1788, and volume ii. in 1789—‘Sermons on Different Subjects, left for publication by John Taylor, LL.D.,’ which were edited by the Rev. Samuel Hayes. They were often reprinted, and are believed to have been in the main the composition of Johnson, in whose ‘Prayers and Meditations,’ 21 Sept. 1777, is the entry ‘Concio pro Tayloro.’ Boswell wrote down in Taylor's presence, and incorporated in the ‘Life,’ ‘a good deal of what he could tell’ about Johnson. Many letters from Johnson to him were printed in ‘Notes and Queries’ (6th ser. v. 303–482). Three of them were known to Boswell, and about twelve were printed by Sir John Simeon, their owner in 1861, for the Philobiblon Society. These communications, with others, are included in Dr. Hill's edition of Johnson's letters. Further letters are in the same editor's ‘Johnsonian Miscellanies’ (ii. 447, 452).
[Boswell's Johnson, ed. Hill, i. 26, 44, 76, 196, 238–9, ii. 473–5, iii. 135–9, 150–69, 181–208, iv. 353, 378, 420; Johnsonian Misc. ed. Hill, i. 476–7, ii. 136, 151; Johnson's Letters, ed. Hill, i. 12, 164–5, 175, 184, 347, ii. 43, 97, 165, 233–6, 264, 355, 397, 401; Macleane's Pembroke Coll. (Oxford Hist. Soc.), pp. 349–50; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 366, 368; Gent. Mag. 1749 p. 45, 1769 p. 511, 1788 i. 274; information from the Rev. Francis Jourdain, vicar of Ashbourne.]
TAYLOR, JOHN (d. 1808), writer on India, entered the service of the East India Company in 1776 as a cadet in the Bombay army. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant on 1 May 1780, became captain in December 1789, was appointed major on 20 March 1797, and on 6 March 1800 attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He married before 1789, and died at Poonah on 10 Oct. 1808. Taylor was the author of: 1. ‘Considerations on the Practicability and Advantages of a more speedy Communication between Great Britain and her Possessions in India,’ London, 1795, 4to. This work, which was chiefly based on Colonel James Capper's ‘Observations on the Passage to India’ (1783), advocated an overland route for letters through Egypt. 2. ‘Observations on the Mode proposed by the New Arrangement for the Distribution of the Off-reckoning Fund of the several Presidencies in India,’ 1796, 4to. 3. ‘Travels from England to India by the way of the Tyrol, Venice, Scandaroon, Aleppo, and over the Great Desert to Bussora,’ London, 1799, 8vo. 4. ‘Letters on India,’ 1800, 4to; translated into French, Paris, 1801, 8vo. 5. ‘The India Guide,’ pt. i. vol. i. 1801, 8vo.
