Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/40

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PREFACE.
xxxiii

seemed to have left bis animosity towards the Claimant as a legacy to that party at the Board whose views he always promoted, apparently without understanding them: (for there is no trace of his partiality to the Lunar method.) Never were ostensible duties more remarkably made a stalking-horse for private incentives, and vengeful misgivings, than when, in 1772, the talented veteran having, some time before, under the disadvantage of being refused every facility in their power, completed another Timekeeper (an improved copy of the successful one, which it was quite contrary to the common interest that he should waste his valuable time in showing he could imitate) it was required of him to submit this, his last work, to a trial of twelve months, instead of that which the Act, the foundation of his labours, had prescribed.—Although twelve months could not but be supposed to make a very serious difference to an octagenarian,

    grieve the descendants of a Courtier of Queen Anne's circle, who seems to have resembled the character of Nasiedenus in Horace. The Dean, after having been several times invited, one day took his dinner with this Aristocrat, and thus comments on the fare: "his wine was poison, his carps were raw, and his candles tallow; yet, with all this, the puppy has fourteen thousand a year. I will take care how he catches me so again; besides every body has laughed at me for dining with him."—These letters give an idea of the habits and mode of life of Swift, at that time, and the present purpose is to develope the causes which finally led to the royal interference in the case of John Harrison.