his age was indeed not one of the least deformities in these proceedings: and what can be thought of this opprobrium when we find that Mr. Mudge, junior, intending to extenuate any defects in his father's Timekeepers, shows him to have been near sixty when he commenced the first: that is, twenty years younger than the Claimant. Neither was this the extremity of that malevolence which under
Mechanician's pursuits; and these geniuses had frequent discussions to solve some problem for
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.
In the solution of it, however, they touched a string too discordant for the dulcet notes of friendship; they differed respecting the right to discovery of a principle advanced in the Harmonics, but we waive the particulars here. Their estrangement, under such circumstances, cost the rural genius some tears (as he tells us.) Not so, the Cantabrigian, who, notwithstanding his professed analysis of harmony, seems to have been deficient of it in his composition; and indulged an acrimony so injurious in its consequences, that not having the candour to separate the cause of the Longitude from that of the musical amateur, he degenerated from a zealous friend into the bitter enemy of his former associate; which, as the Professor's chair gave him a seat at the Board, he could demonstrate: and, like Dr. Bradley, had no idea of the propriety of absenting himself when questions immediately connected with the interest of the Candidate were before them—a remark applicable, it may be seen, to other Commissioners at personal variance with him: they were a jury appointed to decide on his claim to a reward of £20,000, but unlike the general practice in other courts, he could not challenge any of them, though ever so notoriously at enmity with him.
