d-tongued, bustling personage--a
sort of bravo of science and theology, who took up the first opinion
which occurred to him, scorned to rectify it by any after-thought, and
plunged from one absurdity into another, for the sake of consistency.
The eloquence of his attacks upon the chair, of whose possession he was
supposed to be foolishly ambitious, was vaunted a good deal by his
partisans. But, as the only evidence of his rhetoric in these squabbles
ever quoted, is one sentence, it is like the pretension to wit on the
strength of a single pun, and may be easily cast aside. This boasted
sentence was uttered, in threatening the secession of the mathematical
party. "The president will then be left with his train of feeble
amateurs, and that toy (the mace) upon the table--the ghost of the
Society in which Philosophy once reigned, and Newton officiated as her
minister."

Horsley's theology was too nearly on a par with his mathematics--he
_was_ harsh and headlong. The fortunate folly of Priestley in
challenging the English clergy to a trial of strength in the old arena
of Unitarianism, gained him an opportunity of crushing an antagonist
whose presumption was in proportion to his ignorance. Accordingly, the
Unitarian was speedily put _hors-de-combat_, and Horsley was rewarded
with a mitre.

The president had long felt that the purpose of this violent lover of
parallelograms was, to unseat him. The question was therefore brought to
a decision, in the shape of a resolution "approving of Sir Joseph Banks
as president, and resolving to support him in his office." This
resolution was carried by 119 to 43.

Honours began now to gather upon him. In 1788 he had been made a
baronet. In 1795 he received the order of the Bath, then generally
restricted to soldiers and diplomatists. In two years after, he was
called to the Privy Council. On the death of the Duke of Ancaster he was
chosen recorder of Boston; but, though often solicited to stand an
election, he was never a member of Parliament. Though professing himself
a Tory, he seems never to have taken any active part in politics,
preserving a curious practical neutrality in Lincolnshire, and giving
his interest to Mr Pelham, a Whig, and Mr Chaplin, a Tory. This, which
his noble biographer curiously seems to consider as a happy proof of the
absence of all party feelings, we should be apt to look upon as a proof
of a degenerate wish to consult his own ease, and of a sluggish
neutrali