Taylor attracted notice at Oxford by his talents as a preacher; but he does not seem to have commenced, during this period of ease and tranquillity, any of those great works which have rendered him illustrious as one of the most laborious, eloquent, and persuasive of British divines. The only sermon extant which we can distinctly refer to this period, is one preached by command of the Vice-chancellor on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, 1638. This piece requires notice, because it is connected with a report, circulated both during Taylor’s residence at Oxford and afterwards, that he was secretly inclined to Popery. It is even said that he “wished to be confirmed a member of the church of Rome,” (Wood, Athenæ Oxon.) but was rejected with scorn in consequence of the things advanced against that church in this sermon. Of this whole statement Bishop Heber, in his ‘Life of Taylor,’ has expressed his disbelief; and the arguments on which his opinion is founded appear to us satisfactory. Not even during his peaceable abode at Uppingham do Taylor’s great works appear to have been projected, as if his amiable, affectionate, and zealous temper had been fully occupied by domestic cares and pleasures, and by the constant though quiet duties of a parish priest. The year 1642, as it witnessed the overthrow of his domestic happiness by his wife’s death, saw also the beginning of those troubles which cast him out of his church preferment, a homeless man. We do not know the date of the sequestration of his living; but as he joined Charles I. at Oxford in the autumn of the year; published in the same year, by the King’s command, his treatise ‘Of the sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy, &c.;’ was created D. D. by royal mandate; appointed chaplain to the King, in which capacity he frequently preached at Oxford, and attended the royal army in the wars; it is probable that he was among the first of those who paid the penalty of adhering to the losing cause. Little is known of this portion of Taylor’s history. It appears that he quitted the army, and retired into Wales, where he married, became again involved in the troubles of war, and was taken prisoner at Cardigan, Feb. 4, 1644. We do not know the date of his release, or of his marriage to his second wife, Joanna Bridges, a lady possessed of some landed property at Mandinam, near Golden Grove, in the Vale of Towy, in Carmarthenshire, who was commonly said to be a natural daughter of Charles I., born before his marriage. But Heber conjectures that Taylor’s marriage was anterior to his imprisonment, and that his wife’s estate was amerced in a heavy fine, in consequence of his being found engaged in the royal cause at Cardigan. It is at least certain that until the Restoration he was very poor, and that he supported himself during part of the time by keeping a school.