ve 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.

{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 s