Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/267

210 the invention of the compass.—Exclusive of renowned warriors, celebrated statesmen and reverenced divines, or philosophers, as we saunter under the fretted roof, attention is drawn to uncommon excellence in poetry—in imparting the favours of the Muses.—We are far from concurring in the affected notion of Boileau, that a good poet is of no more use than a good player at nine-pins; but if utility is entitled to the preference, it would be very difficult to say, that Pope and Dryden laid the public under greater obligations than a Mechanician, successfully engaged in discovering the Longitude. Dr. Johnson (himself a poet) would have allowed no such thing. The most captivating verses, he would have said, will never prevent a shipwreck: they will neither stifle the cries of the passengers nor console the merchant for his loss. But, waiving this point, on what principle are that great master of harmony, Handel, that inimitable son of the sock and buskin, Garrick, and various others who administered to intellectual gratification in the closet, or on the boards, commemorated in this vestibule of fame; while the far more essential benefits accruing to mankind from the solution of the Longitude, by the first accurate chronometer, have not procured for their persevering Inventor an iota of recognition among these clustered columns?—nor yet under that dome dedicated to St. Paul? "E'en from the tomb the voice of Shovel calls" Bless'd be the man, for ever bless'd, the seaman's friend! Whose hand impelled by genius, earlier tim'd, had sav'd Me and my gallant mates from the disastrous havoc Of that awful night; when neither moon, not constellation. Lent us foreknowledge, by a cable's length, Of those infernal rocks that shiver'd heart of oak. Steering with flowing sheet and foaming cutwater, And jolly hopes of England's looming on the morrow, Our lot was cast; we never more our hammocks sought. But found, alas! our quarters in a colder cot: All, all, in mortal coil o'erwhelm'd at once, Oh God!