Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/45

xxxviii from a rough one, or from notes afterwards thrown away, by Walter Williams, an attorney, an intimate friend of William Harrison; who latterly became Secretary to the Apothecaries' Company, and as such had apartments at their Hall, in Blackfriars. It sometimes offends against grammar, and now and then the construction of the sentences is not consonant to the intended meaning.—A consideration of some interest, is the traits occasionally developed in the distinguished characters of that time: these sometimes do not square with history, or with the biography of the parties, which is particularly the case with Lord Anson, and Mr. Granville. The Earl of Egmont reminds us of De Foe's "Tarpaulin Lords;" for he regarded conscientious objections, about the wording of an oath, no more than his boatswain would have done; and Dr. Bradley, as has been seen, was avowedly a judge in his own cause. We may add, that the Narrative of John Harrison and his Son, which was not known to be in existence when discovered among their mathematical books, was to him, in his limited sphere, what the diaries of Lord Melcomb Regis and the Earl of Waldgrave were to those noblemen in the political world: but the burden of his theme was of far more importance to mankind than the turmoil of party politics, when they wrote, which