Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/244

NO. 1. This method of ascertaining the Longitude by the Moon has already cost the public the sum of precariousness attending the Lunar method of finding the Longitude at sea (and even at land) which his own ill success so strikingly confirmed; yet with an infatuation in science bordering on that of Johanna Southcot in divinity, and reckless of the castigation he had received herewith, which he enhanced by the climax of affectation, in pretending there was no occasion he should reply to what he could noways controvert; he is found twenty years after (in his reply to the younger Mudge) repeating his decided opinion of the superiority of the Lunar process; but without producing any thing to counterbalance the blunder he had been detected in, of finding the Longitude after, and not before the ship's crew saw land. He does not indeed show the misplaced condescension with which he had before allowed, that Timekeepers might be useful as auxiliaries to Luna: but—waiving this: the trial, which brought out the reply of John Harrison, appearing to have been concerted between Lord Morton and the Astronomer Royal, leads with other points, to the inference that he was more associated with a philosopher so deficient in common sense than any other of the Commissioners: and as he introduced matters in the appendix of his answer to Mudge, which had no more to do with his subject than would a dissertation on the Runic alphabet, those who would desire to see Dr. Maskelyne exculpated from participating in the vengeful predilections of the anomalous character, brought forward; which were carried to the extent of refusing the aged Claimant all manner of facilities for prosecuting his labours; greatly to the injury of the public, as well as the individual; will be disposed to thank that prudence especially called on him, both in behalf of himself and his mathematical colleagues, to have found room in that appendix or in some other of his writings, for an explanation extremely wanted, to relieve them, if it was feasible, from so strong a brand, as that of fellowship or their being aiding and abetting in the vindictive