Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/98

Rh contempt of court (including a gross licentiousness of demeanour and insulting demonstrations towards our sovereign Lord the King, &c.?) Even were such committals not borne out, if the case came to be argued before a committee of privileges; yet both houses would readily concur in relieving the Judges by a bill of indemnity, for their laudable endeavours to support the respect due to the Throne, so essential to the well-being of the state:—and which his Majesty, so far from having forfeited by any act derogatory to his station, had, on the contrary, been netting a most distinguished example to princes, by the scientific and rational appropriation of his time.

The above sketch, which is noways opposed to probability, shows the danger these unlearned Collegians ran, by forgetting, we cannot say, by the not choosing to remember those considerations, never to be lost sight of, in transactions in which the Sovereign is a party. They were indebted only to the extreme urbanity and goodness of heart of this Prince for not being brought into collision with hime, like the earthen pot and the brazen one in the fable, after having stretched out their fists to beard their liege Lord in this manner. The Earl of Sandwich, we believe, had never seen the small pamphlet (given as No. 1 in the Appendix) which was the real source of this refractory and disgraceful spirit in th eLunar party. Dr. Maskelyne being unable to disprove the six pennyworths of truth sent him in this wrapper, which might have been