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 
