Milton, of whom I wrote in my last letter, was five years older than
Jeremy Taylor, of whom I am going to write to-day. The latter's
writings differ very much from Milton's, although they were
contemporaries for the whole of the former's life.
From the grave and august periods of Milton to the sweet beauty of
Jeremy Taylor is as the passing from out the austere halls of Justice to
lovely fields full of flowers.
Your and my great kinsman, Coleridge, pronounced Jeremy Taylor to be
the most eloquent of all divines; and Coleridge was a great critic.
Indeed, there seems to dwell permanently in Jeremy Taylor's mind a
compelling sweetness and serenity.
His parables, though sometimes perhaps almost of set purpose fanciful,
are always full of beauty.
How can anyone withhold sympathy and affection from the writer of
such a passage as this:--
"But as, when the sun approaches towards the gates of the morning,
he first opens a little eye of heaven, and sends away the spirits
of darkness, and gives light to a cock, and calls up the lark to
matins, and by and by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps over
the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns, like those
which decked the brows of Moses when he was forced to wear a veil
because himself had seen the face of God; and still, while a man
tells the story, the sun gets up higher, till he shows a fair face
and a full light, and then he shines one whole day, under a cloud
often, and sometimes weeping great and little showers, and sets
quickly, so is a man's reason and his life."