The Quaker ancestry of the poet,—the Taylors and the Ways,—run back through a long line of industrious men and women, more or less known in Central Pennsylvania, to the colony which William Penn sent over from England to cultivate the great land-grant, which King Charles II., of England, gave him, in consideration of his father’s services as admiral in the British navy. They, too, were driven from their homes by the incessant turmoil either of wars or religious persecutions. Their preachers had again and again been imprisoned, while some had died the death of martyrs. Even Penn himself was often in chains and in prison, for being a peaceable believer in the truth of the Quaker doctrines; but so blameless were the lives of these people, and so forgiving their Christian behavior, that the term “Quakers,” which was at first applied to them in derision, became at last a title of respect and honor. “The fear of the Lord did make us quake,” was a common expression with George Fox, the founder of the sect, and the name “Quakers” originated in sneers at that devout sentence. It is easy to trace in the history of the State of Pennsylvania, the influence of the Quaker spirit, and its impression upon the institutions of the American nation is also strikingly apparent. But when one takes up the life of one of their descendants, and studies his habits, his style of thought, and his ideas of social and political institutions, the hereditary Quaker element, in a modified form, is detected in every motion and expression. It would seem as if any reader, to whom the author is unknown, would detect at once, in any volume of Taylor’s poetry or travels, the fact that he came from Quaker stock. As will be more clearly shown in a subsequent chapter, the teachings of the Quakers, and their manner of expression by gesture and phrase, have unconsciously and charmingly crept into the bosom of his best works. It is a great boon to be born of such a physical and mental combination as that of the German soldiers, with all their coolness and bravery, and the even-tempered, God-fearing Quakers, with all their grace and wisdom. Such intermixture has given to our young nation much of its surprising enterprise and originality, and must, at last, when consolidated into a compact people, produce a nation and a race wholly unlike any other on the earth. It is not known that any of Bayard Taylor’s ancestry were literary men, or that any of them were endowed with special genius, beyond that which was necessary to clear the forests, cultivate the soil, manage manufacturing enterprises, and carry on small mercantile establishments. Solid people, with wide common-sense, industrious hands and generous hearts, they have modestly held their way, doing their simple duty, and, Quaker-like, making no display. CHAPTER III.