A lady once asked him how he came
to define Pastern the KNEE of a horse: instead of making an elaborate
defence, as she expected, he at once answered, 'Ignorance, madam,
pure ignorance.' His definition of Network* has been often quoted with
sportive malignity, as obscuring a thing in itself very plain. But to
these frivolous censures no other answer is necessary than that with
which we are furnished by his own Preface.
* Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances,
with interstices between the intersections.'--ED.
His introducing his own opinions, and even prejudices, under general
definitions of words, while at the same time the original meaning of the
words is not explained, as his Tory, Whig, Pension, Oats, Excise,* and a
few more, cannot be fully defended, and must be placed to the account of
capricious and humorous indulgence. Talking to me upon this subject when
we were at Ashbourne in 1777, he mentioned a still stronger instance
of the predominance of his private feelings in the composition of this
work, than any now to be found in it.
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