Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/246

NO. 1. I shall not presume to make any reflections on the different treatment the two Inventions have met or for the supervision of the Nautical Almanac: that he regularly produces his vouchers for the specific appropriation of what he receives—and certainly the Author would not cast a shadow of doubt on the correctness of the learned Gentleman's assumption. But withal, he cannot forego his amazement at the assurance it involves, as exemplified in the words "I have never shown any inclination to become a candidate for any of these rewards."—That the Astronomer Royal in maturer years having married a lady of fortune, who enlarged his family by an only daughter—that having preferment in the church, and being altogether at his ease in a pecuniary view, could make a merit of discarding all mercenary schemes, and yet without once alluding to his inordinate and interested ambition at a former period of life: of which, exclusive of his embarking for St. Helena and for Barbadoes, an extraordinary proof is preserved, in the curious scene at the latter Island, which was so near toppling down his ladder of preferment, is enough to preclude any further comment on such a strange vagary. Had he been involved in totally different concerns, some colour might have been given to the tabula raza which his mind had become on this subject; but with a daily, and hourly recurrence to the same ideas, who will exonerate him from as rank an affectation as ever disgraced a man of science?—That notwithstanding the oblivious assertion, so consummately advanced, Dr. Maskelyne had not forgotten his loquacious and extravagant indiscretion at Barbadoes, where, like Ixion, he had grasped a cloud instead of the reward worth a goddess, were there not better evidence, might have been inferred from the awkward extreme and needless reserve he was noted for, on occasions when to withhold the information he could give, had a silly appearance, and might be construed as a want of common politeness. Thus, in an article of the Encyclopædia, some discrepancy is noticed between the statements of the Doctors, Mackay and Hutton;