Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/285

228 led him to find, on a comparison of circumstances, that to the embittered and haughty spirit of Dr. Maskelyne, thus thwarted point blank in his special purposes, the origin and main support of these licentious demonstrations may be ascribed (in a Court where he sat as Judge in his own cause, and never had the delicacy to withdraw.) The challenge to produce his discoveries by the Moon, might have shown him writhing on tenter-hooks; nathless he was determined not to succumb to the Mechanic, or WHOSOEVER WERE HIS ABETTORS, while he was backed by his Colleagues from Cam and Isis, for reasons equivalent to the esprit du corps, and seconded by Lord Sandwich, from motives that never transpired: and the Lunar party knowing that by the letter, though not in the spirit of the Commission of which they formed a part, slid were then a majority, they were responsible to Parliament, but not to the crown, they mustered a front, in opposition to the King's sentiments, which, originating as it did, in private and personal animosity, would have exposed them to public scorn, had the particulars been known.—When George 3rd condescended (and in him it was a condescension) to communicate with them, not indeed in the regal character, but as it were like a private gentleman, anxious for the improvement of navigation and scientific mechanics. As they could not affect an ignorance of by whom the junior Harrison was sent, unless they had more brass about them than Wood, the half-penny monger in the Drapier's Letters; it was wholly inconsistent with a monarchial Government, where the King is the fountain of honour, to dismiss his messenger (metaphorically speaking) with no better than a slap on the jaws. And most certainly, could Mr. Croker's favourite philosopher, in theory, have changed places with the greater philosopher, in practice, on receiving such a report, he would have blended his voice, not with the music—but the thunder of the spheres.