John Taylor (24 August 1578 – December 1653) was an English
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
who dubbed himself "The Water Poet".
Biography
John Taylor was born in the parish of St. Ewen's, near South Gate,
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
on 24 August 1578.
His parentage is unknown, as the parish registers did not survive the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
. He did, however, attend elementary school and grammar school there. His grammar school education may have taken place at the Crypt School in Gloucester, however Taylor never finished his formal education as Latin bested him.
In the early 1590s, after his attempt at grammar school he moved from his home to south London, probably
Southwark
Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...
, to begin an apprenticeship as a
waterman.
His occupation was one deemed unpopular by the literary elite of London. Watermen were known to be drunkards, and often gossips and liars, who attempted to cheat patrons into a higher wage for their service. This occupation would be crafted into an image for Taylor later in his career.
After his waterman apprenticeship he served (1596) in the fleet of the
Earl of Essex
Earl of Essex is a title in the Peerage of England which was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title has been recreated eight times from its original inception, beginning with a new first Earl upon each new cre ...
, and participated in the
Capture of Cádiz
The Capture of Cádiz in 1596 was an event during the Anglo-Spanish War, when English and Dutch troops under Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and a large Anglo-Dutch fleet under Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, with support from the ...
in that year, and in a voyage to the island of
Flores
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including the Komodo Islands off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km2, and th ...
in the
Azores
)
, motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace")
, anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores")
, image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg
, map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union
, map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...
in 1597.
He spent much of his life as a Thames
waterman, a member of the guild of boatmen that ferried passengers across the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, in the days when the
London Bridge
Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It r ...
was the only passage between the banks. His occupation was his gateway into the literary society of London, as he ferried patrons, actors, and playwrights across the Thames to the Bankside theatres. In 1620, Taylor claimed almost 20,000 men lived by this trade, including dependents and servants, and in 1641, he believed there were over 40,000 in the company itself. He became a member of the ruling oligarchy of the guild, serving as its clerk; it is mainly through his writings that history is familiar with the watermen's disputes of 1641–42, in which an attempt was made to democratize the leadership of the Company. He details the uprisings in the pamphlets ''John Taylors Manifestation ...'' and ''To the Right Honorable Assembly ... (Commons Petition)'', and in ''John Taylors Last Voyage and Adventure'' of 1641.
Taylor discusses the watermen's disputes with the theatre companies (who moved the theatres from the south bank to the north in 1612, depriving the ferries of traffic) in ''The True Cause of the Watermen's Suit Concerning Players'' (written in 1613 or 1614). The move of theatres from the south bank to the north took a huge toll on Taylor's income, and despite at that time being in the company of the King's Watermen, he could not sway the
king
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
to prevent the move.
He also addresses the coachmen, in his tracts ''An Arrant Thief'' (1622) an
''The World Runnes on Wheeles''(1623); recent development of horse-drawn carriages with spring suspension, and use of them for hire on land, had taken much trade away from the watermen. ''An Arrant Thief'' says:
All sorts of men, work all the means they can,
To make a Thief of every waterman :
And as it were in one consent they join,
To trot by land i' th' dirt, and save their coin.
Carroaches, coach
Coach may refer to:
Guidance/instruction
* Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities
* Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process
** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers
Transportation
* Co ...
es, jades, and Flanders mares,
Do rob us of our shares, our wares, our fares :
Against the ground, we stand and knock our heels,
Whilst all our profit runs away on wheels ;
And, whosoever but observes and notes,
The great increase of coaches and of boats,
Shall find their number more than e'er they were,
By half and more, within these thirty years.
Then watermen at sea had service still,
And those that staid at home had work at will :
Then upstart Hell-cart-coaches were to seek,
A man could scarce see twenty in a week ;
But now I think a man may daily see,
More than the wherry
A wherry is a type of boat that was traditionally used for carrying cargo or passengers on rivers and canals in England, and is particularly associated with the River Thames and the River Cam. They were also used on the Broadland rivers of No ...
s on the Thames can be.
When Queen Elizabeth came to the crown,
A coach in England then was scarcely known,
Then 'twas as rare to see one, as to spy
A Tradesman that had never told a lie.
Taylor was also the first poet to mention the deaths of
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
and
Francis Beaumont
Francis Beaumont ( ; 1584 – 6 March 1616) was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher.
Beaumont's life
Beaumont was the son of Sir Francis Beaumont of Grace Dieu, near Thrin ...
in print, in his 1620 poem, "The Praise of Hemp-seed". Both had died four years earlier.
In paper, many a poet now survives
Or else their lines had perish'd with their lives.
Old Chaucer, Gower, and Sir Thomas More,
Sir Philip Sidney, who the laurel wore,
Spenser, and Shakespeare did in art excell,
Sir Edward Dyer, Greene, Nash, Daniel.
Sylvester, Beaumont, Sir John Harrington,
Forgetfulness their works would over run
But that in paper they immortally
Do live in spite of death, and cannot die.
![Houghton EC](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Houghton_EC.T2152.641s_-_Taylor.jpg)
He was a prolific poet, with over one hundred and fifty publications in his lifetime. Many were gathered into the compilation ''All the Workes of John Taylor the Water Poet'' (London, 1630; facsimile reprint Scholar Press, Menston, Yorkshire, 1973); augmented by the Spenser Society's edition of the ''Works of John Taylor ... not included in the Folio edition of 1630'' (5 volumes, 1870–78). Although his work was not sophisticated, he was a keen observer of people and styles in the seventeenth century, and his work is often studied by social historians. An example is his 1621 work ''Taylor's Motto'', which included a list of then-current card games and diversions.
He achieved notoriety by a series of eccentric journeys: for example, he travelled from London to
Queenborough
Queenborough is a town on the Isle of Sheppey in the Swale borough of Kent in South East England.
Queenborough is south of Sheerness. It grew as a port near the Thames Estuary at the westward entrance to the Swale where it joins the River M ...
in a paper boat with two
stockfish
Stockfish is unsalted fish, especially cod, dried by cold air and wind on wooden racks (which are called "hjell" in Norway) on the foreshore. The drying of food is the world's oldest known preservation method, and dried fish has a storage lif ...
tied to canes for oars, described in "The Praise of Hemp-Seed", which was re-enacted in 2006. From his journey to Scotland in 1618, on which he took no money, Taylor published his ''Pennyless Pilgrimage''. (
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
walked to Scotland in the same year.) He is one of the few credited early authors of a
palindrome
A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards, such as the words ''madam'' or ''racecar'', the date and time ''11/11/11 11:11,'' and the sentence: "A man, a plan, a canal – Panam ...
: in 1614, he wrote "Lewd did I live, & evil I did dwel". He wrote a poem about
Thomas Parr, a man who supposedly lived to the age of 152 and died visiting London in 1635. He was also the author of a constructed language called ''
Barmoodan''.
Many of Taylor's works were published by
subscription
The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and ...
; i.e., he would propose a book, ask for contributors, and write it when he had enough subscribers to undertake the printing costs. He had more than sixteen hundred subscribers to ''The Pennylesse Pilgrimage; or, the Moneylesse Perambulation of John Taylor, alias the Kings Magesties Water-Poet; How He TRAVAILED on Foot from London to Edenborough in Scotland, Not Carrying any Money To or Fro, Neither Begging, Borrowing, or Asking Meate, Drinke, or Lodging'', published in 1618. Those who defaulted on the subscription were chided the following year in a scathing brochure entitled ''A Kicksey Winsey, or, A Lerry Come-Twang'', which he issued in the following year.
By wondrous accident perchance one may
Grope out a needle in a load of hay;
And though a white crow be exceedingly rare,
A blind man may, by fortune, catch a hare.
— ''A Kicksey Winsey'' (pt. VII)
Death
Taylor died in London in December 1653 aged 75. He was buried on 5 December at the church of
St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields is a Church of England parish church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. It is dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. There has been a church on the site since at least the mediev ...
. His widow, Alice, died in January 1658.
Reception and influence
Despite having been one of the most widely read poets in Stuart England, there is a disparity between Taylor's contemporary acclaim and his modern obscurity.
His volume of work was immense, resulting in almost 220 titles by 1642. The reach of his work had been broad, due to its use of the vernacular and his many genres, including satires, moral essays, funeral elegies (including an elegy for James I), and travel literature. Taylor ferried himself between the educated elite and the urban working class, bridging a gap in early modern readership that valued quality over quantity. This "cultural amphibian" of a poet struggled with his own cultural identity, remaining on the sidelines of the educated elite, but firmly tied to his occupation as a waterman, which defined his career in literature. This struggle highlights for scholars the gap in readership and literary culture between the elite and working classes in early modern London.
Despite his poor grasp of Latin, John Taylor aspired to be like his idols Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson, and was heavily criticised by Jonson throughout his career for his lack of grace in his language. Despite failing to enter fully into the world of London's literary elite, Taylor developed a sense of authorial personality which survives his work, and may have been the genesis of the "celebrity" of author, as he carefully crafted his public image throughout his career, beginning with his reworking of his otherwise frowned-upon occupation as a waterman into a name for himself as the King's "Water-Poet". Taylor provided a style of writing that was not bound by the constructs of classical learning, as most poets of the time would have been products of their grammar school education, whether they intended it or not.
John Taylor's development of travel literature, which came into popularity in the 1500s, solidified his career and public image, and his travels were often funded through bets made by the public as to whether he would complete his journey.
He entertained no gout, no ache he felt,
The air was good and temperate where he dwelt;
While mavisses and sweet-tongued nightingales
Did chant him roundelays and madrigals.
Thus living within bounds of nature's laws,
Of his long-lasting life may be some cause.
References
;Attribution
Secondary sources
*
* – the first full-length biography.
*
*
External links
*http://www.bartleby.com/214/1812.html bartleby.com
*https://web.archive.org/web/20091026215839/
*https://web.archive.org/web/20091026215839/http://www.geocities.com/thameswatermen/original.htm
*https://web.archive.org/web/20030513234315/http://www.his.com/~rory/castle2.html
*http://www.nndb.com/people/463/000098169/
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, John
1578 births
1653 deaths
17th-century English poets
17th-century English male writers
People from Gloucester
16th-century English poets
English male poets