Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/78

lxii ed upon the examples that Italy alone can furnish, was not giving ancient architects fair play. What was to be learned from the first proportions of their plans and elevations seemed to have remained untouched in Egypt; after having considered these, I proposed to live in retirement on my native patrimony, with a fair stock of unexceptionable materials upon this subject, to serve for a pleasant and useful amusement in my old age. I hope still these will not be lost to the public, unless the encouragement be in proportion to what my labours have already had.

received, however, a letter very unexpectedly by way of Alexandria, which, if it did not overturn, at least shook these resolutions. The Comte de Buffon, Mons. Guys of Marseilles, and several others well known in the literary world, had ventured to state to the minister, and through him to the king of France, Louis XV. how very much it was to be lamented, that after a man had been found who was likely to succeed in removing that opprobrium of travellers and geographers, by discovering the sources of the Nile, one most unlucky accident, at a most unlucky time, should frustrate the most promising endeavours. That prince, distinguished for every good quality of the heart, for benevolence, beneficence, and a desire of promoting and protecting learning, ordered a moveable quadrant of his own military academy at Marseilles, as the nearest and most convenient port of embarkation, to be taken down and sent to me at Alexandria.

this I received a letter from Mr Russel, which informed me that astronomers had begun to cool in the sanguine expectations of discovering the precise quantity of