John Taylor (1704-1766)

John Taylor (June 22, 1704 - April 4, 1766), English classical scholar, was born at Shrewsbury.

His father was a barber, and, by the generosity of one of his customers, the son, having received his early education at the grammar school of his native town, was sent to St John's College, Cambridge. In 1732 he was appointed librarian, in 1734 registrar of the university. Somewhat late in life he took orders, became rector of Lawford in Essex in 1751, and canon of St Paul’s in 1757. He died in London on April 4, 1766.

Taylor is best known for his editions of some of the Greek orators, chiefly valuable for the notes on Attic law, e.g. Lysias (1739); Demosthenes Contra Leptinem (1741) and Contra Midiam (1743, with Lycurgus Contra Leocratem), intended as specimens of a proposed edition, in five volumes, of the orations of Demosthenes, Aeschines, Dinarchus and Demades, of which only vols. ii. and iii. were published.

Taylor also published (under the title of Marinor Sandvicense) a commentary on the inscription on an ancient marble brought from Greece by Lord Sandwich, containing particulars of the receipts and expenditure of the Athenian magistrates appointed to celebrate the festival of Apollo at Delos in 374 BC. His Elements of Civil Law (1755) also deserves notice. It was severely attacked by Warburton in his Divine Legation, professedly owing to a difference of opinion in regard to the persecution of the early Christians, in reality because Taylor had spoken disparagingly of his scholarship.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.