WITH PIPE ALIGHT THE LITTLE STAR.

Southland Times, Issue 19389, 1 November 1924, Page 11 (Supplement)

WITH PIPE ALIGHT

THE LITTLE STAR.

(By

“Criticus.”

It seems an age ago since I first learnt what was, I think, my first poem. A simple little thing it was, four lines, but they remain with me to this day, and I suppose I will never forget them while a memory is at my command. There must be many other people of sober years who can recall as intimately those lines: Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are: Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. I thought them wonderful then and now that they have lived through the years and retained their freshness where the sonorous periods of Milton, the clear, delicate beauties of Keats have failed into broken lines, I suppose I can still claim that they have in them some of that eternal magic which stamps them as poetry. Who was the author of them ? I confess humbly that until a few hours ago I did not know. It was while looking through a copy of The Times of London, that proud and satisfying journal, that I noticed a reference to these lines and saw that they were quoted in connection with the observance of the centenary of the author’s death. Then it was that I discovered the author to be Jane Taylor, who died a hundred years ago at Ong ar, in Essex, where her father was minister to the Congregational Church from 1811 to 1829. To mark this centenary a memorial tablet was placed in the church, wherein, doubtless, she had worshipped, because Jane Taylor was a devout lady.

She came from a remarkable family of writers and artists. Her father was a Londoner, who worked as an engraver until 1796 when he became an Independent minister at Colchester. There he remained for fourteen years preaching the gospel and carrying on his engraving work, one of the best of which is ‘The Assassination of Rizzio” after Opie. In 1810 he moved to Ongar, and I think he remained there until his death. It was while he was at Ongar that he wrote “Self-Cultivation Recommended” and “The Beginnings of British Biography.” When he went to Ongar he took with him three children: Ann, who was born in 1783 in London, Jane, and Isaac, who first saw the light in 1787. Isaac was born in Suffolk but he lived at Ongar for some years, developing into an author and an engraver. He designed many plates for the works of his father and his sisters, but in addition he wrote “The Natural History of Enthusiasm,” which was published first in 1829 and reached its tenth edition in and “Home Education” in 1838. These works were published anonymously, as were “The History of Fanaticism,” “Spiritual Despotism,” “The Physical Theory of Another Life.”

With their father and brother writing, Io say nothing of their uncle Charles, who was the editor of Calmet’s “Bible Dictionary,” it is not surprising that the two sisters, Jane and Ann, also took up the pen. Jane wrote the “Contributions of Q.Q.” and with Ann “Hymns for Infant Minds,” “Poems,” “Display,” a tale, and “Essays in Rhyme.” Ann was the elder by a year, but Jane was the dominant mind and after her death in 1824, the only thing to come from Ann's pen was an autobiography, which was published in 1871. Jane remained single, but Ann married and went to live in Nottingham, where she died in 1866, a year after which the brother published “The Taylors of Ongar.” The talents of the family were carried on in the third Isaac, who was born in Ongar in 1829, the year of his grandfather’s death. This member of the family was educated at Cambridge and took Holy orders, becoming rector of Settringham in Yorkshire and later canon of York. He was a noted philologist, and in 1864 he became known through his “Words and Places,” but his reputation was more securely built on his “The Alphabet,” which appeared in 1883. This Isaac Taylor travelled a lot, in Italy and in Egypt, and he died finally as recently as 1902. That is a remarkable record for three generations of a family, embracing five people, and it is astonishing for one, at my time of life, to discover so much erudition, so much literary fame associated with a four line stanza of very moderate dimensions. One might go on to moralise on the fact that of all the grave tomes associated with the Taylors of Ongar this simple quatrain is probably the best known, but that part of the business may be left to others. I have discovered an author, have set down what scraps of information my books of reference disclose and have passed on to the many who remember “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” these details concerning the woman who wrote the lines more than a hundred years ago.