Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/217

160 Or 3. That they will come to so enormous a price as to be out of the reach of purchase. Hill, and afterwards twice round Great Britain, in contrary directions, to have been successfully completed; yet still the Candidate could never know if he was near achieving the reward: for the clause referred to was continued in these words—"and in such other voyages to different climates as the said Commissioners shall think fit to direct and appoint." We will suppose then the two Timekeepers returned from different climates in the four divisions of the globe, including Australia; to which trials three or four years may be reasonably allotted—that they have both passed uninjured through the casualties they were exposed to, and, which is most important, had both proved correct within the terms of the Act: then comes the fag end of this business, which is another year's trial at Flamstead Hill: this likewise (begging the question) we will suppose is successful. Yet after such an expenditure of time and patience, if the Mathematicians at the Board, not having one Mechanic's agent to oppose them (while the Admirals kept to windward, instead of bearing down) choose to profess themselves not satisfied, they could order a repetition of the whole experiments. So that they might have adopted, towards the opposing class, the language of Belial "in like gamesome mood:" the terms we sent were terms of weight, Of hard contents, and full of force, urg'd home.

The expression, to throw cold water on any scheme, implying, to damp and discourage it effectually, never was better understood than by these pretenders to fathom the profound; but while they were indulging their spleen, under patriotic pretences no more entitled to credence than the assumptions of Clodius, they left any dispassionate observer to infer, that learning is neither a stimulant to virtue, nor synonymous with common prudence—for there could be none in the nefarious uncertainty, which Lord Morton, years before, hung in terrorem over a