It was the reading of Taylor's translation of Buerger's _Lenore_ that did all this.

'This, madam,' said Scott, 'was what made me a poet.

I had several times attempted the more regular kinds of poetry without success, but here was something that I thought I could do.' Southey assuredly loved Taylor, and each threw at the feet of the other the abundant literary learning that both possessed.

This we find in a correspondence which, reading more than a century after it was written, still has its charm.[36] The son of a wealthy manufacturer of Norwich, Taylor was born in that city in 1765.

He was in early years a pupil of Mrs.Barbauld.At fourteen he was placed in his father's counting-house, and soon afterwards was sent abroad, in the company of one of the partners, to acquire languages.