“In this year (1828) was published ‘Airs of the Rhine,’ accompaniments by William Horsley, Mus. Bac., Oxon, the poetry translated by Edward Taylor. Of Mr. Taylor’s brief sketch of German music prefixed to this collection, the Quarterly Musical Review (conducted by Mr. R. M. Bacon) says, ‘It is so agreeably written, and contains so many authentic and interesting particulars, that we must do him the justice to give it a place at length. It will speak more for the publication than anything we can say to interest the reader.’
“In 1837, Mr. Taylor was elected Gresham Professor of Music. The place had been for 200 years a mere sinecure, generally held by persons totally ignorant of music, but he did much to render it useful to the art. In 1838 he published his ‘Three Inaugural Lectures,’ which he dedicated to the Trustees of Gresham College. He was not content with reading his lectures, however good. He illustrated them by having some compositions of the master who might be under discussion, well sung in parts by a competent choir. Amateurs of distinction and professional men lent their aid, and this attracted large audiences to the theatre.
“In 1843, Professor Taylor, who had been musical critic for the Spectator for fourteen years, retired from that department, and he received a very complimentary letter from Mr. Rintoul the editor, who said, ‘I can bear my willing testimony to the high aims, the great ability, the persevering zeal, and undeviating punctuality with which you have upheld the cause of good music in my journal for the long period of fourteen years. I believe that a selection from your writings in the Spectator would comprise a body of the soundest and best musical criticism in the language; and when you retire, I know not that any second man in England is qualified to sustain the elevated standard that you have raised, &c.’ High praise indeed, but well deserved.
“In the year 1845, Professor Taylor published, in the British and Foreign Review, an article headed ‘The English Cathedral Service; its Glory, its Decline, and its Designed Extinction.’ This was subsequently published by permission of the proprietor in the form of a thin octavo volume. It was a masterly defence of the musical services of our Cathedrals, and of the choirs, against the spoliation of the deans and chapters, which had been silently and surely going on ever since the time of Queen Elizabeth. It made a strong sensation at the time, and even now, whoever would strike a blow for the cause of Cathedral music, (which in Professor Taylor’s opinion is the salt which can alone save the musical taste of the people from corruption) will find the best weapons ready to his hand contained in this little volume.
“Professor Taylor, who had been long a widower, died (March 12th, 1863,) with the utmost tranquillity, at his house at Brentwood. He had three children, all of whom survive him; a son, Mr. John Edward Taylor, who was with him in his last moments, and two daughters, one of whom is married and lives in Germany, her sister living with her.
“We believe that Mr. Taylor left injunctions that his manuscripts should not be published, which is surely to be regretted. If his rare and valuable musical library, the acquisition of which was the labour of a life, should be sold, we trust that it will not go piecemeal to the hoards of individual collectors, but be bought for the use of Gresham College and its future musical professors.”
The compiler of this history had some long interviews with Professor Taylor when he last visited Norwich in 1857, and he then stated that he had large collections of music, and a large number of lectures on the music of every period. He delivered a very splendid lecture on the music of the Elizabethan age, in aid of the funds of the Free Library, before a large audience, in the Lecture Hall, St. Andrew’s.
The Rev. Mark Wilks.
The Rev. Mark Wilks, who lived in the last, and in the early part of the present century, was a very remarkable character as a politician and a preacher. From his biography, written by his daughter and published in 1821, we derive the following particulars. He was the son of a subordinate officer in the army, and was born at Gibraltar on February 5th, 1748. When his father and family returned to England they lived at Birmingham, where young Mark was brought up to a trade, and where he became an itinerant Baptist preacher, without any chapel. The Countess of Huntingdon heard of his exertions, and invited him to her college at Trevecca, to which he removed in 1775, and studied there for a year. In 1776 the Countess appointed him to be minister of the Tabernacle in Norwich, which became the scene of his most continued and concentrated exertions. The first sermon he preached here was on a Sunday evening to a crowded congregation, and he made a great impression. He preached in the same pulpit that Whitfield once occupied, and the simplicity of the new minister’s appearance, and the negligence of his exterior, surpassed that of the apostle of Calvinism. His long hair fell carelessly over his shoulders; his meagre person and ruddy countenance gave him at mature age the aspect of youth. The whole of his demeanour was illuminated by the fire of affectionate zeal, and by an earnestness of manner, evincing that he was honest in the sacred cause of truth. From this time he continued his ministry till 1778, when in the spring of that year he married Susannah Jackson of Norwich. This was an event which he ever justly estimated as the happiest of his life, but it severed his connexion with the patroness of the Tabernacle. Her rule was to dismiss the students of her college on their marriage. The Countess of Huntingdon regretted the separation and recommended him to several destitute congregations, none of which, however, were then suited to his views.
After travelling about for some time in Wiltshire, where he preached in several chapels, he returned to Norwich, and on January 1st, 1780, his new meeting place was opened, and he became a pastor under the denomination of Calvinistic Methodist, without the customary form of ordination. During the interval which elapsed between his return to Norwich and his establishment as a Baptist minister, his congregation rapidly increased, and continued to increase from 1780 till 1788. He lived in retirement, and performed with satisfaction and marked punctuality the duties of his ministry. His congregation was formed into a regular Baptist church in May, 1788, and it remained so all his life. On this change many of his former supporters left him, so that his income was reduced. He therefore took a farm in the neighbourhood of Norwich, and commenced farming on an extensive scale. Employment or poverty was his only alternative, and he followed the example of the apostle Paul by supporting himself.
We now approach a period in his life in which he distinguished himself not only as a pastor, but also as a citizen and patriot; for in the year 1790 commenced those great events in France which laid the foundation of the long war between this country and that unfortunate empire, a war disastrous to both. On July 14th, 1791, Mr. Wilks preached two eloquent discourses to commemorate the leading features of the first French Revolution, before crowded congregations, composed of the most influential persons in the city and its neighbourhood. The propriety of such discourses from the pulpit may be doubted, but they caused great excitement, as the preacher defended the revolution, which was then viewed with terror by many people. We shall notice this, however, more at length in the political part of our narrative, in which we shall have to speak of the very active part which Mr. Wilks took in political affairs both in the city and county. That Mr. Wilks was a rather violent partisan, and more of a Radical than a Whig, will appear by an extract from his biography, respecting a county election.
“When the Honourable William Wyndham first offered himself as a candidate for the county of Norfolk, he came in the character of a Whig, and a professed friend of civil and religious liberty. Mr. Wilks then warmly supported him, and to his exertions Mr. Wyndham attributed his success. But the revolution in France effected a strange change in the principles of Mr. Wyndham; and on his second appearance as candidate for Norfolk, he presented himself in the character of a ‘war minister,’ and the enthusiastic abettor of the most disgraceful and perilous measures ever pursued by weak and wicked men. Instead, therefore, of receiving support, he met with the most determined opposition from those who had been before his active friends. As Mr. Wilks on his former election had supported him by the most vigorous exertions, he now appeared foremost in the ranks of his opponents; and Mr. Wyndham regarded him with fear and jealousy. The following anecdote will show with what gratitude he returned the former services of him whom he had called his friend. One morning, as a very intimate friend of Mr. Wilks was passing by the house of a poor man, he was unexpectedly invited in, and was informed by the man that his wife had just found an open letter, the contents of which were of the greatest importance to Mr. Wilks. It indeed proved so. It was a letter from Mr. Wyndham to one of his friends at Norwich, desiring him to be most vigilant in watching the movements and expressions of Mr. Wilks; and if at any time he uttered anything which might be made to appear treasonable, to make him acquainted with it, assuring him that he would take the most prompt and severe means for his conviction. No sooner had Mr. Wilks read this letter than he hastened with it to the printer’s, and in a few hours the perfidy of Mr. Wyndham was publicly known in every part of the city, and the original letter returned to its proprietor, to his inexpressible dismay and confusion. The family and friends of Mr. Wilks regarded this circumstance as an interposition of a watchful Providence. But for this circumstance a few days might have seen him the inmate of a dungeon, and his life devoted, through the incautiousness of a sentence, to the treachery of an enemy. This supposition may appear less improbable when it is known, that at that time some who had been less active and less violent than himself, had been snatched from their families during the stillness of the midnight hour, and had been conveyed to prison without any form or reason assigned to them. This attempt upon the liberty, and perhaps the life, of Mr. Wilks had the beneficial effect of making him more vigilant over his words, and more cautious, although not less bold and decisive in all his proceedings. Yet his wife and friends entertained so great an anxiety for his safety, that they strongly importuned him to seek an asylum under the calmer skies of America, but he resisted their importunities.
“It must be mentioned, as an instance of the generosity of Mr. Wilks’ disposition, as well as a proof that his political conduct originated in genuine principles of patriotism, that when Mr. Wyndham again returned as a candidate for Norfolk as conjoint supporter of the Whig interest in union with Mr. Coke, Mr. Wilks never suffered the recollection of his private wrongs to interfere with the principles that Mr. Wyndham had come forward to maintain, but supported him with the same firmness and ardour as he had ever done.
“But it is necessary to return to those incidents of his life, the order of which has been neglected in pursuing the chain of his political character, and which he considered of far greater importance than any other. In the year 1792, the Baptist Missionary Society was established by Carey, Fuller, Pearce, and Ryland. Those incomparable men, in a small room at Kettering, planted the germ of that tree which has since spread its branches into the remotest corners of the earth. The Indian Banyan is famed for its fertility; it is planted, it grows, and its branches descending, strike root, and reproduce another tree; its branches again descend, and produce another tree; trees succeed in endless multiplication, till a far and wide-spreading beauteous forest is formed from the vast trunk of what was once a single plant. In India flourishes a moral Banyan; it has been planted by the hand of a Carey, a Fuller, a Pearce, a Ryland, and a Wilks; watered and cultivated by their labours and their prayers, its roots have taken a deeper and deeper root, and the day is approaching when the sultry clime of India shall be covered by its shadows, cheered by its verdant foliage, and refreshed by its heavenly fruits.
“It is well known that Mr. Wilks’ devotion to the missionary cause was early and invincible. Whether he was present at its establishment is rather doubtful; but from its commencement he regarded it as the dawn of happiness to the world, and put into action all his powers and his influence in promoting so benevolent an end. But it was not in the mission alone that he evinced his benevolence and his disinterestedness. Nine years had elapsed since he first commenced farming, and during that time and the succeeding year he preached regularly, and fulfilled all the duties incumbent on his station, without receiving for his services the smallest remuneration. Whether in this instance he acted in all respects with prudence has frequently been doubted by himself as well as his friends. His conduct originated in feelings of the purest benevolence, although perhaps it lost its excellence in losing its justice.”
In the year 1797 Mr. Wilks was obliged to quit his farm, the lease of which had expired. He immediately engaged another at Aldborough, a village near Harleston in Suffolk, and went there to reside with his family in March, 1797. The distance of that place was seventeen miles from Norwich; yet although he was necessarily obliged to omit the week-day preaching, he never once neglected the regular performance of his pastoral duties on Sunday. In every kind of weather he constantly travelled thirty-four miles every Sunday to preach to a congregation from whom he received no remuneration. This course of exertion, however, could not be long continued. With the engagements of his farm, which were at this time very considerable, and the care attendant on a large family of twelve children, he found it was necessary either to give up his church or to leave his farm. Though his farm was a very profitable one, he did not hesitate which course to pursue; and he took another farm at Cossey, near Norwich, where he continued for some time, and where he often preached to the people in the village.
In March, 1802, he purchased a farm at the village of Sprowston, only two miles from Norwich. Here he enjoyed the society of his friends in the city, and in every respect his own comfort and that of his family were improved by this removal. His congregation increased, and the chapel in which he preached became too small for all who wished to attend his ministry. His friends were therefore desirous of erecting a more commodious one, and purchased a piece of ground for its erection. In September, 1812, he laid the first stone, and Mr. Andrew Fuller preached on the occasion.
In 1814, he went on a begging tour for his meeting house, and travelled through the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Cambridgeshire, and thence to London. In six weeks he collected about £400, but his exertions brought on a serious illness. After his return his family scarcely hoped for his recovery. On May 4th, 1814, the new meeting house, in St. Clement’s, Norwich, was opened by Mr. M. Wilks of London, and Mr. A. Fuller. The pastor was present, but in a very feeble state of health. He recovered slowly in a few weeks, and when his health was sufficiently restored, he made another effort to diminish the debt on the new chapel. Though he frequently considered himself to be in a dying state, yet at every interval of ease he pursued his work with unremitting ardour. It is unnecessary to relate all the details of the few latter years of his life; the long journeys he took in the years 1815 and 1816, were a proof of the generosity of his heart. His last two years he spent in retirement, yet in the performance of his ministerial duties; and ever ready to advance the interests of his church, of his family, and of mankind.