NAUTICAL ALMANAC. 337 



It has been pretended that the principal promoter of 

 these foolish exaggerations did not perceive such serious 

 errors in the Nautical Almanac until after he had un- 

 successfully attempted himself to obtain a place in the 

 Board of Longitude. I know not whether the fact was 

 so. In any case, I would not make myself the echo of 

 the malicious commentaries to which it gave rise ; I 

 ought not to forget, in fact, that for many years past that 

 member of the Royal Society to whom I allude has 

 nobly devoted a part of his large fortune to the advance- 

 ment of science. This commendable astronomer, like all 

 men of science whose thoughts are concentrated on one 

 sole Object, fell into the error, which I do not pretend to 

 excuse, of measuring through a magnifying glass the 

 importance of the projects he had conceived ; but that 

 with which above all he must be reproached is, that he 

 did not foresee that the hyperbolic language of his attacks 

 would be taken literally ; that he forgot that at all epochs 

 and in all countries there are a great number of persons 

 who having nothing to console them for their littleness, 

 seize, as a prey, on all occasions of scandal, and under 

 the mask of zeal for the public good enjoy the delight of 

 being ignoble defamers of those of their contemporaries 

 whose success has been proclaimed by fame. In Rome 

 he whose office it was to insult the triumphant conqueror 

 was altogether a slave ; in London it was a member of 

 the House of Commons, from whom the men of science 

 received a cruel affront. An orator notorious for his 

 prejudices, but who had hitherto vented his bitterness 

 only against productions of French origin, attacked the 

 most celebrated names in England, and retailed against 

 them in open parliament puerile accusations, with a 

 laughable gravity. Ministers whose eloquence was ex- 



SEC. SER. 15 



