2°<» S. No 51,, Dec. 20. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



489 



Essay IV. — Parallel between Magnetism and Electricity, 

 Natural and vSpiritual. 



Essay V. — I'arallel between Geometry Aiid Plane Trigo- 

 nometcy, Natural and Spirlti^al. 



Essay VI. — Pai-allel betweett Cliettlfstry Natliral ftrid 

 Spiritual. 



Essay VII. — An Analogic Comrneutary on the Pro- 

 phecies of the 1260 Years, as contained in the DisBerta- 

 tions of the Rev. G. S. Faber. 



Essay I. Section 2; 



By the Author of Meihoirs of a Deist. 



LondoJi Hatchards, 1828," pp. 357, Svtt^ 



In this essay tlae author, assisted, as it appears, 

 solely by the analogical bias of his own mind, the 

 Bible, and some scietitific works, arrives at much 

 the same conclusions with the Mystics, especially 

 Bohme and Swedenborg, without impugning the 

 orthodox faith ; and many parts of it remind one 

 of Dr, Cheyne's PlulonopMcal Priii'ciples of lie- 

 ligion^ Natural and Revealed. 



The six remaining essays, or most of thertij 

 were written and prepared for the press, as they 

 are frequently quoted and referred to, but they 

 were never published. I should be very glad to 

 know if the MSS. be still in existence, and I much 

 regret their not having been published, especially 

 Essays IV. V. and VI. 



6. Thomas TAixtift. Few people know biore 

 of "Taylor the Platonist," or "Taylor the 

 Pagan," as he is sometimes called, than that he 

 was a self-taught man, who devoted hitttsielf for 

 forty yeats or more, with incessant application, to 

 the study of the Platdnists, and especially the 

 Later or Alexandrian Platonists ; and that he 

 threw himself Vvith such spirit and enthusiasm 

 into his studies, and gave up his tnind so entirely 

 in this one-sided pursuit, that at length he eili- 

 braced this refihed aild philosophical Paganisiti as 

 his ineligion ; for Taylor, as for Goethcj Hegel, 

 and others*, the fascinating mythc^ogy of ancient 



* " There are four things," sa3's Goethe, " that I detest 

 equally,— tobacco and bells, bugs and Cliristianit_v." This 

 sentiment, according to La Libel-te de Pensc); "is the 

 most natural expression of the invincible repugnance that 

 the Olympic Jupiter of modern times felt towards the 

 aesthetic Christian. It is by instinct Goethe hales the 

 moral revolution which has substituted the pale and 

 sickly Virgin for thfe antique Venus ; and for the ideal 

 perfection of thfe Human Body, represented by the Gods 

 of Greece, the meagre image of a Crucified Slan whoSfe 

 limbs are distorted by four nails. After this it is not 

 surprising that we find the colossal head of Jupiter placed 

 before his bed and turned towards the rising sun, in ordet 

 that he may address his morning prayers to him on 

 waking. Inaccessible alike to tears and fear, Jupiter was 

 truly the God of this great man. Hegel prohouhced with 

 equal decision in favout of the irelig:iou3 ideal of the Hel- 

 lenists, and agaibst the intrusioil of the Syrians or Gali- 

 laeans. The legend of Christ appeared to him conceived 

 in the same system as the Alexandrian biography of Py- 

 thagoras. . . . It is the sailie theme that lias so often 

 excited the mirth and humour of Henry Heine. But 

 M. Louis Eeurbach, chief of the young German school, is 

 perhaps the most complete expression of this antipathy 



Greece was still a living reality, and Schiller's 

 lament, — 



" Die alten Eabelwesten slnd nicht mehn 

 Das reiiende Geschlecht iet ausgewandert," 

 did not extend tb Mm. 



Emerson, in recording a conversation he had 

 with Wordswotth in March, 1848, continues : 



" We talked of English national character. I told hiiii, 

 it Was not creditable that no One in all the country knew 

 anything of Thomas Taylor^ the Platohist, whilst in 

 every American library his translations are found," — 

 Engliih Traits, p. 166. 



There is, I believe, a sketch of Taylor's life in 

 Knighfs Petitiy Cyclopcgdia ; however, I have never 

 seen it, and I would feel much obliged for any 

 particulars respecting this remarkable man, es- 

 pecially as I have a number of his translations, 

 &e., and aha under many obligations to him. A 

 reprint ill a compact. form of his scattered pieces, 

 contributions to the ClassicalJournal, Old Monthly 

 Magazine, Tk6 Pamphleteer *, &c., would be very 

 acceptable to Taylor's readfers at both sides of the 

 Atlantlti. 



7. LEttMftS OF Bitotttfett LAtJ&feNCE. — I re- 

 member sorngTV^hefe meeting a strong eulogium on 

 this work, ehat-acterisihg it as mystlfcal and deeply- 

 spiritual. I have never since met with this book, 

 of gained any intelligence respecting it ; some bf 

 your readers, perhaps, may sUp{)ly the deficiency. 

 In concluding these Notes and Queries, allow me 

 tb remind your correspondent Anon, that he has 

 not completed, as he promifeed he would, his valu- 

 able and interesting Note oh Bohme, " N. & Q.j" 



2°"^ S. i. 513. EiRIONNACH. 



Cdlliiiss Od'6 i '* How sleep the brave" ^c. -^ 

 ttow is it that this ode, which is usually ascHbed 

 to Collins, and is always, I believe, inserted among 

 his poems, is also found in the Oratorio of " Alfred 

 the Great,*' to which the following "advertise- 

 ment'' is prefixed ? 



• " This Oratorio is altered from ' Alfred^' a Masque, re- 

 presented before their Royal Highnesses the Prince and 

 Princess of Wales* at Cliefden, August 1, 1740 ; being the 

 birtli-day of the Princess Augusta. Written by the late 

 Mr. Thomson and Mr. Mallet, and afterwards new written 

 by Mr. Mallet, and acted at the ThCatirS Eoyal in Drury- 

 Lane in 1791." 



Thfe edltibh of the Oratot-Io from which this 

 "advertisement" Is copied Was printed at Londoh 

 ih 1?54. J. M. 



Oxford. 



against Christianity," &c. See Liberie de Penser, Nov. 20, 

 1850, and Le Ver Rongeur des Societcs Modernes par 

 L'Abbe Gaume, cap. xvi. 



* Such dissertations,, too, as are attached to his larger 

 works ; for instance, the Hisionj of the Restoration oj the 

 Platonic Theology, by the genuinie t)iscij)les of Plato, ap- 

 pended to the second volume of Prdclus on Euclid. 



