Thomas Taylor

Thomas Taylor (1758-1835) became a Platonic philosopher and translator of numerous works of Greek philosophy.  Raised in a dissenting home, he studied for the ministry under Hugh Worthington at Salter’s Hall, London, but a precipitate marriage led to his taking a position as a bank clerk. He eventually found some patrons (among his friends with the sculptor John Flaxman, who later became a close friend of HCR) whose financial generosity allowed him to pursue his philosophical studies. His first translation appeared in 1787, and by 1797 he had been dubbed 'the modern Platonist’. Shortly before HCR’s meeting with Taylor, Taylor was appointed assistant secretary to the Society of Arts in London, a post he maintained until 1806. Taylor’s translations of the major works of Platonism were influential on many of the Romantic poets, including Blake and Coleridge, primarily in the 1790s; thereafter his reputation waned considerably, though in America he was championed by Emerson and other New England transcendentalists.