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to interfere with the probable sequel of the discussions, the Applicant was not so fully benefited as would have resulted, could his Majesty have imparted a portion of his own arduous perseverance to the gentlemen, with whom he was perfectly agreed in opinion. For if it be allowed to judge of what we do not know by what we do, nothing but what was physically insurmountable would have thwarted his dignified purpose; he would have rode from Lincoln, or from York, and in all weather too, if by that he could have restored the "father of modern chronometry" to the elevated ground he occupied when the success of the Timekeeper was universally admitted.[1]
- ↑ The following speculative analysis of the general character of monarchs, though it leans to an exaggerated extreme, and certainly allows of manifold exceptions, may be given to illustrate the surprising contrast between George 3rd and the elevated order of men to which he belonged by birth.
Kings are beings very different from other men; their sensations are of another kind; their exemption from the general lot of hardships in some degree attending all other situations, makes them strangers to commiseration and sensibility; the pleasures of friendship are exchanged for those of flattery and obsequiousness; the nature of their education is calculated to destroy all natural disposition—at least the effects are the same as if it were a part of the plan; they begin so early to live by rules of art, that they are in masquerade the whole of their lives; whether their design be to oblige or offend, they are equally under the necessity of employing artifice. There is no other rank in life that can be so generally defined, because there is no other order of men who are framed so
