Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/130

Rh ideas with those of the discoverer of the Longitude, appeared to the knowing ones like Peter the Great, fresh from the dock-yard in Holland, to the courtiers of Lewis XIV. and that the reply, well understood, when it was enquired in the anti-room "with whom is the King engaged? would be—Lord Sir! a mere Mechanic, strangely vile and low. Then with the easy transition of the Poet, "—One asks what news?"

And the context supplies the rest:"—he's told of some new plays; New eunuch's, harlequin's, and operas."

With reference to the direct object of the Writer, how much it is to be regretted, that gentlemen of professed literary or scientific education, Fellows of the Royal Society and others, to whom the public features of the transactions with William Harrison it is highly probable were well known, if the private marks were not, should, either out of regard for some friend or friends, connected with the Commission of Longitude, or benumbed by experimenting on a torpedo caught near "" in some lake the Poet forgot, have been entirely silent on a subject calculated to excite the utmost deference in select men of imposing denominations, congregated for such a purpose as denotes a Society styled Royal, and which collectively appeals to the patronage so implied: but in this case, without having contributed a single associate, who, instead of those indefinite professions which princes are accustomed to receive (especially