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British essayist, scholar and polyglot

William Taylor (7 November 1765 – 5 March 1836), often called William Taylor of Norwich, was a British essayist, scholar and polyglot. He is most notable as a supporter and translator of German romantic literature.

He was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England on 7 November 1765, the only child of William Taylor (died 1819), a wealthy Norwich merchant with European trade connections, by his wife Sarah (died 1811), second daughter of John Wright of Diss, Norfolk. William Taylor was taught Latin, French and Dutch by John Bruckner, pastor of the French and Dutch Protestant churches in Norwich, in preparation for continuing his father's continental trading in textiles. In 1774 he was transferred to Palgrave Academy, Suffolk, by Rochemont Barbauld, whose wife Anna Letitia Barbauld Taylor regarded as a strong influence. For three years his school companion was Frank Sayers, who was to be a lifelong friend. In August 1779 his father took him from school. During the next three years he spent much of his time abroad. Firstly he visited the Netherlands, France, and Italy, learning languages and business methods. In 1781, he left home again, and spent a year in Detmold, staying with an Alsatian Protestant pastor called Roederer, and absorbing German literature under the influence of Roederer gave him introductions to August Ludwig von Schlözer the historian at Göttingen, and to Goethe at Weimar. After further German travels he returned to Norwich on 17 November 1782. He became the leading figure of Norwich's literary circles, and a political radical. He applauded the French Revolution and argued for universal suffrage and the end of all governmental intervention in the affairs of religion. He wrote in the 18th century tradition of liberal and latitudinarian criticism of the Bible (which Sayers thought heretical, at least in part). In the period 1793 to 1799 he wrote over 200 reviews in periodicals, following his concept of "philosophical criticism". From 1783 Taylor was engaged in his father's business. In May and June 1784 he was in Scotland with Sayers, who had begun medical studies at Edinburgh; there he met James Mackintosh. A second journey to Edinburgh in 1788 followed a breakdown in Sayers' health. Before the end of 1790 two new clubs were formed in Norwich, of which Taylor became a member, the "Tusculan School" for political discussion, and the Speculative Society, founded by William Enfield for philosophical debate. It lasted to 1797, dissolving after Enfield died. Around this point in time, Taylor persuaded his father to retire on his fortune. The firm was dissolved in 1791; his father employed part of his capital in underwriting, not very successfully. Taylor resisted his father's wish to put him into a London bank. In May 1794 government repression of radicals meant the Norwich Revolution Society closed down officially; and Taylor added "junior" to its written records, wherever his father's name appeared. In late 1794 a Norwich periodical, The Cabinet, was set up, publishing articles taking an anti government view. It was supposed to be the work of a "Society of Gentlemen", the group behind it being closely related to the Tusculan School, which dissolved or went underground in mid 1794: it was edited by Charles Marsh, and Taylor contributed, along with other like minded young radicals, such as Thomas Starling Norgate and Amelia Alderson. They had tacit support from older citizens, including Enfield and Edward Rigby. It appeared for a year from September 1794, proposing in fact a tame and moderate intellectual line.

Taylor was nicknamed godless Billy for his radical views by Harriet Martineau. Martineau, born in 1802, was a child when Taylor was in his intellectual prime. Thirty three years junior to Taylor, she petulantly said of him:

his habits of intemperance kept him out of the sight of ladies, and he got round him a set of ignorant and conceited young men, who thought they could set the whole world right by their destructive propensities. David Chandler writes in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography that Taylor was probably homosexual. In 1802, during the Peace of Amiens, Taylor embarked on another tour of Europe, visiting France, Italy and Germany, partly on business; Henry Southey joined him at Paris. He stayed with Lafayette at Lagrange, where he met Frances d'Arblay. In Paris he met Thomas Holcroft, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Manning. From 1811 American and other business losses made money tight. Taylor applied in 1812, at Southey's suggestion, for the post of keeper of manuscripts in the British Museum, on the resignation of Francis Douce; but the vacancy was already filled. In the evening he liked to socialise, drink (heavily) and discuss linguistics, literature and philosophy in society.

Three early poetic translations from German brought him to notice. Georg Herzfeld wrongly assigned to him the political song, The Trumpet of Liberty, first published in the Norfolk Chronicle on 16 July 1791, having been sung on 14 July at a dinner commemorating the fall of the Bastille; Edward Taylor claimed it for his father, John Taylor, of the unrelated Norwich family. William Taylor's name was made by his translation of Gottfried August Bürger's Lenore into English ballad metre. This was written in 1790, and bore the title Lenora; sent it to his friend Benzler from Detmold (then in Wernigerode); a previous version had been made in 1782 by Henry James Pye, but was not published till 1795, and was unknown to Taylor. The translation, circulated in manuscript, was made the foundation of a ballad (1791) by John Aikin, and was read by Anna Barbauld in 1794 at a literary gathering in the house of Dugald Stewart in Edinburgh. Stewart's brother in law, George Cranstoun (Lord Corehouse) gave his recollection of it to Walter Scott, who produced his own version (1796) of the poem, entitled William and Helen. The announcement of the almost simultaneous publication of Scott's version and three others had led Taylor to publish his in the Monthly Magazine in March 1796; he then published it separately as Ellenore, revised with some input from the version by William Robert Spencer.