MEMOIRS of the LIFE and MECHANICAL LABOURS of the late MR. tion *. • This truly respectable clergyman (who died April 3, 1759) was, for many years before his death, a prebendary of Exeter, and vicar of St. Andrew's, Plymouth. He was, fays that excellent judge, the late Dr. Johnson, a man equally eminent for his virtues and abilities, and at once beloved as a companion and reverenced as a pator. He had that general curiofity to which no kind of knowledge is indifferent or fuperfluous, and that general benevolence by which no order of men is hated or defpiled. His principles, both of thought and action, were great and comprehenfive. By a folicitous examination of objections, and a judicious comparifon of oppofite arguments, he attained, what inquiry never gives but to induftry and perfpicuity, a firm and unfhaken fettlement of conviction. But his firmnefs was without afperity; for knowing with how much difficulty truth is fometimes found, he did not wonder that many miffed it. The general courfe of his life was determined by his profeffion. He ftudied the facred volumes, in the original languages, with what diligence and fuccefs his Notes upon the Palms give fufficient evidence. He once endeavoured to add the knowledge of Arabic to that of Hebrew; but finding his thoughts too much diverted from other tudies, after fome time, defifted from his purpofe. His difcharge of parochial duties was exemplary. How his fermons were compofed may be learned from the excellent volume he has given to the public; but how they were delivered can be known only to those who heard them; för as he appeared in the pulpit, words will not eafily defcribe him. His delivery, though unconstrained, was not negligent, and, though forcible, was not turbulent. Difdaining any anxious nicety of emphafis, and laboured artifice of action, it captivated the hearer by its natural dignity; it roufed the fluggish, and fixed the volatile; and detained the mind upon the fubject, without directing it to the speaker. The grandeur and folemnity of the preacher did not intrude upon his general behaviour: at the table of his friends, he was a companion communicative and attentive, of unaffected manners, of manly cheerfulnefs, willing to please, and eafy to be pleased. His acquaintance was univerfally folicited; and his prefence obftructed no enjoyment which religion did not forbid. Though ftudious, he was popular; though argumentative, he was modeft; though inflexible, he was candid; and though metaphyfical, yet orthodox.' London Chronicle, April 1769. The Rev. Mr. Mudge had three other fons hefide the fubject of thefe memoirs ; and they were all poffeffed of uncommon abilities. The oldeft, Zachariah, was a furgeon and apothecary at Tiverton, and afterward furgeon on board an East Indiaman: he died, in 1753, on board his fhip, in the river Canton, in China. The third, the Rev. Richard Mudge, was officiating minifter of a chapel of eafe at Birmingham, and had a finall living, prefented to him by the earl of Ailesford. He was not only greatly diffinguifhed by his learning, but by his genius for mufic. He excelied as a compofer for the harpsichord; and, as a performer on that inftrument, the great Handel declared, that he was fecond only to himfelf.-The fourth fon, John, was a furgeon and apothecary at Plymouth; but, during the latter part of his life. he practifed, with great fuccefs as a phyfician, Like his brother Thomas, he had great F At a very early period of his life, Mr. Mudge gave strong indications of of that mechanical genius by which he has been fince fo eminently diftinguished; for, while he was yet a fchool-boy, he could, with eafe, take to pieces a watch, and put it to together again, without any previous inftructions. At the age of fourteen, he was bound apprentice to Mr. George Graham, watchmaker, oppofite Water-lane, Fleet-freet, a diftinguished philofopher, as well as the moit cclebrated mechanic of his time *. He foon attracted the particular attention of his matter, who fo highly enimated his mechanical powers, that, upon all occafions, he aligned to him the niceft and moft difficult work; and once, in particular, having been applied to by one of his friends, to conftruct a machine new in its mechanical operation, his friend, fome time after it had been fent home, complained that it did not perform its office. Mr. Graham anfwered, that he was was very certain the complaint could not be well founded, the work having been executed by his apprentice, Thomas;' and, indeed, it appeared, upon examination, that Mr. Graham was fully juftified in this implicit confidence in his apprentice; the work having been executed in a very matterly manner, and the fuppofed defect arifing entirely from the unskilful management of the owner. On the expiration of his apprenticeship, Mr. Mudge took lodgings, and continued to work privately for fome years. About the year 1757, he married mifs Hopkins, the daughter of a gentleman at Oxford. The circumftance which firft refcued him, as it were, from obfcurity, is very remarkable: Mr. Ellicot, who was one of the moft diftinguished watchmakers of his time, and who had been often employed by Ferdinand VI, king of Spain, was defired by that prince to make him an equation watch. Mr. Ellicot not being able to accomplish the undertaking, applied to Mr. Shovel, an ingenious workman, to atlit him; but he also being unequal to the task, mentioned it to Mr. Mudge, with whom he was very intimate, and who readily undertook to make fuch a watch. He not only fucceeded to his own fatisfaction, but to the admiration of all who had the opportunity of infpecting it. This watch having been made for Mr. Ellicot, his name was affixed to it (as is always cuftemary in fuch cafes) and he affumed the whole merit of its conftruction. An unfortunate accident, however, did juftice to the real inventor, and flripped Mr. Ellicot of his borrowed plumes. Being engaged, one day, in explaining his watch to fome men of fcience, it happened to receive an injury, by which its action was entirely deftroyed; and he had the mortification to find, moreover, upon infpecting the watch, that he himfelf could not repair the mischief. This compelled him to acknowledge that Mr. Mudge was the real inventor of the watch, and that to him it must be fent to be repaired. This tranfaction having, fome way or other, come to the knowledge of his catholic majeily, who was paffionately fond of all mechanical productions, and particularly of watches, that monarch i: mediately employed his agents in England to engage Mr. Mudge to work for him; and fuch was his approbation of his new arti's performances, that he honoured him with an unlimited commiffion to make mechanical talents; and it is fomewhat extraordinary that, amid the fatigues of great practice, he found time to profecute improvements in refleting telelcopes; the Royal Society, in 1777, having adjudged to him fir Godfrey Copley's gold medal, for a paper he prefented to that learned body, on the best methods of grinding the fpecula of reflecting telicopes. He alfo contiderably improved the Inhaler, an ingenious contrivance for the curing of coughs, by inhaling iteam. In 1777, he publifhed Diflertation on the Inoculated Smallpox,' which was followed, fome years after, by A Treatise on the Catarrhous Cough and Vis Vitæ.' He died in 1792. * See Memoirs of his Life, with a fine portrait, in our Magazine for January 1792. A for him, at his own price, whatever more than a private gentleman.'he might judge moft worthy of at- Indeed, the king of Spain had fuch tention. a high opinion of his integrity, that he not only used to fpeak of him as by far the moft ingenious artift, as a watchmaker, he had ever employed, but excelling alfo in his fenfe of honour and juftice ||. In 1750, Mr. Mudge entered into partnership with Mr. William Dutton, who had also been an apprentice of Mr. Graham's. They took a house in Fleet-ftreet, and till Mr. Mudge's retirement from bufinefs, maintained that perfect harmony and good underftanding, which refulted from the most entire and reciprocal conviction of each other's honour and integrity. In 1760, an event happened, which Mr. Mudge ever after confidered as the most fortunate in his life. This was his introduction to his excellency the count de Bruhl, who first came to England, that year, as envoy extraordinary from the court of Saxony. This nobleman, who to many other valuable qualities unites great knowledge of mechanical purfuits, and great attachment to them, ever after treated Mr. Mudge with the most generous and condeíce ding friendship; evincing, an every occafion, the most ardent zeal for his fame and fortune, by the mot active fervices. Among the several productions of Mr. Mudge's genius, which thus became the property of the king of Spain, was an equation watch, which not only showed the fun's time, and mean time, but was alfo a striking watch and a repeater; and what was very fingular, and had hitherto been unattempted, it struck and repeated by folar, or apparent, time t. As a repeater, moreover, it ftruck the hours, quarters, and minutes 1. From a whim of the king's, this watch was made in the crutch-end of a cane, in the fides of which were glaffes covered with fliders, on the removal of which the work might be feen, at any time; and his majesty being very fond of observing the motion of the wheels at the time the watch ftruck, it was his practice, as he walked, to flop for that purpose. Thofe who have feen him on thele occafions, have obferved, that he ever thowed igns of the moft lively fatisfaction. The price of this watch was 480 guineas, which, from the expensive materials and nature of the work, afforded Mr. Mudge but a moderate profit for his ingenuity, and he was strongly urged by feveral of his friends to charge 500 guineas for it, which the king would have About this time, Mr. Mudge apreadily paid. To this Mr. Mudge pears to have first turned his thoughts aniwered, that as 480 guineas gave to the improvement of time-keepers ; him the profit to which he was fairly for, in the year 1-55, he published a entitled, as an honeft man, he could fmall tract, entitled Thoughts on the not think of increafing it, and he faw Means of improving Watches, and no reason why a king fhou'd be charged particularly thofe for the Ufe of the The difference between a ftriking watch and a repeater is this, that the former ftrikes of itfelf, like a clock; but the latter will not trike, unless acted upon by pething in the pendant. † Apparent time, called by foreign aftronomers true time, is that which is derived immediately from the fun, either by obferving its tranfit over the meridian, which happens at the infant of apparent noon, when a new day commences, or by obferving its altitude at a distance from the meridian. Mean time is that which is fhown by good clocks or watches, properly regulated: it is fometimes called equated time. I Some of the principles upon which this watch was conftructed have ince been applied, with fuccefs, to larger machines, and particularly to turret-clocks. Mr. Townshend, then fecretary to the embaffy at Madrid, once told Mr. Mudge, that his catholic majefty had often exprefied to him his great admiration of his cha racter, and would frequently afk his affistance to enable him to exprefs the name of Mudge, Fa Sea. In this publication,' fays the late ingenious Mr. Ludlam, the true principles upon which all time-keepers must be conftructed are clearly laid down, and the means of improvement fully pointed out. In 1771, Mr. Mudge quitted bufinefs, and retired to Plymouth, that he might devote his whole time and attention to the improvement and perfection of time-keepers, that great object of his ufeful and honourable ambition. obfervations of the fun if visible for a few minutes, at any time, from his being ten degrees high, till within an hour of noon, or from an hour after noon, till he is only ten degrees high in the afternoon; if, therefore, at any time when fuch obfervation is made, a time-keeper tells us, at the fame moment, what o'clock it is at the place we failed from, our longitude is clearly difcovered. To do this, it is not neceffary that a watch fhould perform its revolutions precifely in that fpace of time which the earth takes to perform her's; it is only required that it should invariably perform it in me known time, and then the conftant difference between the length of one revolution and the other, will appear to be fo much daily gained or loft by the watch, which conftant gain or lofs is called the rate of us going, and which being added to, or deducted from, the time shown by the watch, will give the true time, and confequently the difference of longitude *.' The improvement of time keepers for nautical purpofes has long been an object of public attention; and, in the reign of queen Anne, an act of parliament was paffed, offering the following rewards to any person who fhould, either by the invention of a time-keeper, or other methods there As many of our readers may be unacquainted with the nature of the attempt to afcertain the longitude by time-keepers, we shall here tranfcribe the very plain and eafy explanation of it by Mr. Harrison: The longitude of any place is its diftance, eat or weft, from any other given place; and what we want is a method of find ing out at fea, how far we have got to the eastward or weftward of the place we failed from. The application of a time-keeper to this difcovery is founded upon the following ciples: the earth's furface is did into 360 equal parts (by ima ginary lines drawn from north to fouth) which are called degrees of longitude and its daily revolution eastward, round its own axis, is performed in twenty. four hours; confequently, in that period, each of thefe imaginary lines, or degrees, becomes fuccefively oppofite the fun (which in ftated, determine the longitude makes the noun, or precife middle of the day, at each of those degrees) and it must follow, that from the time any one of these lines paffes the fun, till the next paffes, must be just four minutes; for twenty-four hours being divided by 360 must give just that quantity; fo that for every degree of longitude we fail weftward, it will be noon with us four minutes the later, and for every degree eastward four minutes the fooner, and fo in proportion for any greater or lefs quanfity. Now, the exact time of the day, at the place where we are, can be afcertained by well-known and eafy within the following limits; namely, 10,000l. if fuch method fhould determine the longitude to one degree of a great circle, or fixty geographical miles; 15,000l. if to two-thirds of that diftance; and 20,000l. if to half that diftance. Under this act of parliament, the late ingenious Mr. Harrison, after profecuting his labours with great affiduity, during a confiderable part of a very long life, and contending, it is afferted, with great perfonal oppofition from an official quarter †, obtained the reward of 10,000l.; and, upon his petitioning parliament for a further recom • Remarks on a Pamphlet lately published by the Rev. Mr. Maskelyne, under the Authority of the Board of Longitude; by John Harifon, 8vo. 1767. t Ibid. |