Mr. Maskelyne then proceeds to tell us of a change that happened in the going of the Watch, and says, 'this change began in the beginning of August, on the few and only hot days we had last Summer, which yet were not extreme, the Thermometer within doors having never risen above 73 degrees, the rest of the Summer in general was remarkably cool and temperate.' When I took this Watch to pieces I informed Mr. Maskelyne and the other Gentlemen, that in trying any experiments with it, in respect to heat and cold, it would be proper that
order to get this information, he was then almost a daily visitant of my Father's, and very often, that he might have as much of his time as he could, dined with him.' Some men, (we hope not the present scribe) says Pope, are
forced, in spite
Of nature and their stars, to write.
Dr. Maskelyne seems to have equally contended with his destiny, in desiring to be master of mechanics; for not all the lessons he sought of Mr. Mudge were available to any purpose: which makes it rather ludicrous, when his name appears at the head of the list of three Gentlemen and three Watchmakers who attested that the Inventor had fully disclosed the principles and construction of the timekeeper. We may conclude the Gentlemen who attended would willingly have dispensed wit the Doctor's signature, as a frontispiece to their own, for from some passages in his Pamphlet, it would appear he either did not understand what was explained, or (in the sailor's phrase) forgot it before you could say Jack Robinson. But to form an idea of the offensiveness of this passage to Dr. Maskelyne, let us only suppose some one had told Cardinal Richlieu, be was a mere pretender to poetry; or Sir Robert Walpole, that he knew nothing of polite gallantry.
