A Letter to the members of the Anglo-Biblical Institute, dated Sept. 7, 1858, and signed 'Herman Heinfetter.'[191] (Broadsheet.)
This gentleman is well known to the readers of the _Athenaeum_, in which, for nearly twenty years, he has inserted, as advertisements, long arguments in favor of Christians keeping the Jewish Sabbath, beginning on Friday Evening. The present letter maintains that, by the force of the definite article, the _days_ of creation may not be consecutive, but may have any time--millions of years--between them. This ingenious way of reconciling the author of Genesis and the indications of geology is worthy to be added to the list, already pretty numerous. Mr. Heinfetter has taken such pains to make himself a public agitator, that {95} I do not feel it to be any invasion of private life if I state that I have heard he is a large corn-dealer. No doubt he is a member of the congregation whose almanac has already been described.
The great Pyramid. Why was it built? And who built it? By John Taylor, 1859,[192] 12mo.
This work is very learned, and may be referred to for the history of previous speculations. It professes to connect the dimensions of the Pyramid with a system of metrology which is supposed to have left strong traces in the systems of modern times; showing the Egyptians to have had good approximate knowledge of the dimensions of the earth, and of the quadrature of the circle. These are points on which coincidence is hard to distinguish from intention. Sir John Herschel[193] noticed this work, and gave several coincidences, in the _Athenaeum_, Nos. 1696 and 1697, April 28 and May 5, 1860: and there are some remarks by Mr. Taylor in No. 1701, June 2, 1860.
Mr. Taylor's most recent publication is--
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.
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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.)
