One of the most voluminous of city rhymsters and chroniclers was John Taylor (circa 1580–1654), a London waterman, who styled himself “The King’s Majesty’s Water Poet.” Taylor was a native of Gloucester, and having served an apprenticeship to a waterman in London, continued to ply on the Thames, besides keeping a public-house. The most memorable incident in his career was travelling on foot from London to Edinburgh, “not carrying any money to or fro, neither begging, borrowing, or asking meat, drink, or lodging.” He took with him, however, a servant on horseback, who carried some provisions and provender, and having met Ben Jonson at Leith, he received from Ben a present of “a piece of gold of two and twenty shillings to drink his health in England.” Of this journey, Taylor wrote an account, entitled “The Penniless Pilgrimage, or the Moneyless Perambulation of John Taylor, alias the King’s Majesty’s Water Poet,” &c. 1618. This tract is partly in prose and partly in verse…. Various journeys and voyages were made by Taylor, and duly described by him in short occasional tracts. In 1630, he made a collection of these pieces: “All the Workes of John Taylor, the Water Poet; being Sixty and Three in Number.” He continued, however, to write during more than twenty years after this period, and ultimately his works consisted of not less than 138 separate publications.

Personal

  He was very facetious and diverting company; and for stories and lively telling them, few could out-doe him. Anno 1643, at the Act time, I sawe him at Oxon. I guesse he was then neer 50. I remember he was of middle stature, had a good quick looke, a black velvet, a plush-gippe and silver shoulder-belt; was much made of by the scholars, and was often with Josias Howe at Trinity College. He had heretofore in the long peace severall figgaries, e.g. he came from London to Salisbury in his skuller. He went so to Calais. He went to Scotland (I think round Great Britaine) littus legens in his skuller. Ever since the beginning of the civill warres he lived in Turne-stile-alley in Long Acre, about the middle on the east side over against the Goate (now), where he sold ale. His conversation was incomparable for three or four mornings’ draughts. But afterwards you were entertained with crambe bis cocta. His signe was his owne head, and very like him, which about 22 yeares since was removed to the alehowse, the corner howse opposite to Clarendon howse. Under his picture are these verses; on one side:—

	There’s many a head stands for a signe.
	Then, gentle reader, why not mine?

On the other:—

	Though I deserve not, I desire
	The laurell wreath, the poet’s hire.

This picture is now almost worne out.

  There is a portrait of him bearing date 1655, by his nephew, who was a painter at Oxford, and presented it to the Bodleian, where it was thought not unworthy of a place. He is represented in a black scull-cap, and black gown or rather cloak. The countenance is described to me as one of “well-fed rotundity; the eyes small, with an expression of cunning, into which their natural shrewdness had probably been deteriorated by the painter; their colour seems to have been hazel: there is scarcely any appearance of eye-brows; the lips have a slight cast of playfulness or satire. The brow is wrinkled, and he is in the fashion of mustachios with a tuft of beard under the lip. The portrait now is, like the building in which it has thus long been preserved, in a state of rapid decay…. If the Water Poet had been in a higher grade of society, and bred to some regular profession, he would probably have been a much less distinguished person in his generation. No spoon could have suited his mouth so well as the wooden one to which he was born. His way of life was best suited to his character, nor could any regular education so fully have brought out the sort of talent which he possessed. Fortunately, also, he came into the world at the right time, and lived in an age when Kings and Queens condescended to notice him, nobles and archbishops admitted him to their table, and mayors and corporations received him with civic honours. The next of our uneducated poets was composed of very different clay,—and did not moisten it so well.

  Taylor therefore sought to increase his earnings by turning to account his knack of easy rhyming. He was ready at the shortest notice and on the most reasonable terms to celebrate any one of the three principal events in human life—with a birthday ode, epithalamium, or funeral elegy. Various wagering journeys were also undertaken by him with the same object, and as he was an acute observer of character, custom, and incident, and could express himself in rollicking prose as well as rhyme, his descriptive tours were largely subscribed for when issued in book form. Previous to starting on any journey it was Taylor’s custom to issue a vast number of prospectuses, or “Taylor’s bills” as he called them, announcing the conditions under which he travelled, in the hope of inducing his friends either to pay down a sum of money at once, or to sign their names as promising to do so on the completion of the “adventure.” Most of his brochures were printed at his own cost, and were “presented” by him to distinguished persons. In this way he acquired not only money but numerous patrons of all degrees. Ben Jonson, Nicholas Breton, Samuel Rowlands, Thomas Dekker, and other men of genius took kindly notice of him.

General

	If lord-ship, lady-ship, or court-ship fight,
	Friend-ship and fellow-ship will do thee right
	And wor-ship will assist to make a peace;
	Whilst surety-ship stands bound the wars should cease,
	Thus was that battle ended, but thy praise
	Hath raised a crew which will outlast thy days;
	Steer on thy course then, let thy fertile brain
	Plough up the deep which will run o’er the main
	In such a fleet of sweet conceited matter,
	Which sails by land more swifter than by water,
	That whilst the ocean doth contain a billow
	Thou and thy book shall never have a fellow.

  Nay, if it were put to the question of the Water-rimer’s works, against Spenser’s, I doubt not but they would find more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out of a prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments, and like that which is naught.

  The works of Taylor, which are not destitute of natural humour, abound with low jingling wit, which pleased and prevailed in the reign of James I. and which too often bordered, at least, upon bombast and nonsense. He was countenanced by a few persons of rank and ingenuity, but was the darling and admiration of numbers of the rabble. He was himself the father of some cant words, and he had adopted others which were only in the mouths of the lowest vulgar. His rhyming spirit did not evaporate with his youth; he held the pen much longer than he did the oar, and was the poetaster of half a century.

  There is nothing of John Taylor’s which deserves preservation for its intrinsic merit alone, but in the collection of his pieces which I have perused there is a great deal to illustrate the manners of his age; and as he lived more than twenty years after this collection was printed, and continued publishing till the last, there is probably much in his uncollected works also which for the same reason ought to be preserved. A curious and useful volume of selections might be formed from them.

  Confident in his popularity, the Sculler had had the audacity to print, or bind together for sale, in 1630, a folio edition of his collected “Works,” including all that he had written in prose or in verse up to that date. He was to live four-and-twenty years after the publication, and, besides distinguishing himself by his sturdy loyalty during the civil wars, was to pen a farther quantity of prose and verse, enough to make a second folio, had all been collected.

  He had a knack of rapid versification, but no claim to the rank of a true poet, and Ben Jonson contrasts him with Spenser: he often wrote to supply temporary necessity.

  As literature his books—many of them coarse and brutal—are contemptible; but his pieces accurately mirror his age, and are of great value to the historian and antiquary.