The battle of the Standards: the ancient, of four thousand years,
against the modern, of the last fifty years--the less perfect of the
two. London, 1864, 12mo.
This is intended as an appendix to the work on the Pyramid. Mr. Taylor
distinctly attributes the original system to revelation, of which he says
the Great Pyramid is the record. We are advancing, he remarks, towards the
end of the Christian dispensation, and he adds that it is satisfactory to
see that we retain the standards which were given by unwritten revelation
700 years before Moses. This is lighting the candle at both ends; for
myself, I shall not undertake to deny or affirm either what is said about
the dark past or what is hinted about the dark future.
{96}
My old friend Mr. Taylor is well known as the author of the argument which
has convinced many, even most, that Sir Philip Francis[194] was Junius:
pamphlet, 1813; supplement, 1817; second edition "The Identity of Junius
with a distinguished living character established," London, 1818, 8vo. He
told me that Sir Philip Francis, in a short conversation with him, made
only this remark, "You may depend upon it you are quite mistaken:" the
phrase appears to me remarkable; it has an air of criticism on the book,
free from all personal denial. He also mentioned that a hearer told him
that Sir Philip said, speaking of writers on the question,--"Those fellows,
for half-a-crown, would prove that Jesus Christ was Junius."
Mr. Taylor implies, I think, that he is the first who started the
suggestion that Sir Philip Francis was Junius, which I have no means either
of confirming or refuting. If it be so [and I now know that Mr. Taylor
himself never heard of any predecessor], the circumstance is very
remarkable: it is seldom indeed that the first proposer of any solution of
a great and vexed question is the person who so nearly establishes his
point in general opinion as Mr. Taylor has done.
As to the Junius question in general, there is a little bit of the
philosophy of horse-racing which may be usefully applied. A man who is so
confident of his horse that he places him far above any other, may
nevertheless, and does, refuse to give odds against all in the field: for
many small adverse chances united make a big chance for one or other of the
opponents. I suspect Mr. Taylor has made it at least 20 to 1 for Francis
against any one competitor who has been named: but what the odds may be
against the {97} whole field is more difficult to settle. What if the real
Junius should be some person not yet named?
Mr. Jopling, _Leisure Hour_, May 23, 1863, relies on the porphyry coffer of
the Great Pyramid, in which he finds "the most ancient and accurate
standard of measure in existence."
I am shocked at being obliged to place a thoughtful and learned writer, and
an old friend, before such a successor as he here meets with. But
chronological arrangement defies all other arrangement.
(I had hoped that the preceding account would have met Mr. Taylor's eye in
print: but he died during the last summer. For a man of a very thoughtful
and quiet temperament, he had a curious turn for vexed questions. But he
reflected very long and very patiently before he published: and all his
works are valuable for their accurate learning, whichever side the reader
may take.)