his sons, and secured for him the nickname that still clings to him.[92] [90] Bubb Dodington: _Diary_. [91] Galt: _George III, his Court and Family_. [92] According to John Galt, George III wrote several letters signed Ralph Robinson and dated from Windsor, to Arthur Young for the latter's _Annals of Agriculture_. [Illustration: _From the Oxford Magazine_ THE BUTTON MAKER] George found some pleasure in trifling mechanical occupations, and had a watch made from his own designs by Arnold, of which a description is extant. "It was rather less than a silver twopence, yet contained one hundred and twenty different parts: the whole weighed between five and six pennyweights." Later in life he amused himself in turning on the lathe, and it was declared by the satirists that the royal ingenuity eventually went so far as to construct a button. Certainly for a long time he figured in caricature as "the royal button-maker"; and it was in this capacity an anonymous versifier congratulated him upon the success of his army in America. "Then shall my lofty numbers tell Who taught the royal babes to spell And sovereign art pursue To mend a watch, or set a clock, New pattern shape for Hervey's frock, Or buttons made at Kew."[93] [93] _The New Foundling Hospital for Wit._ George III as Prince of Wales saw nothing of the outside world, and even when in 1759 he was allowed to make an excursion beyond the limits usually imposed upon him, it took the form of a private trip through Scotland, when, preserving the strictest _incognito_, he paid visits to Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Isle of Bute and a few other places, accompanied only by Lord Bute and two servants. It may here be remarked that no English king travelled less than George III, who during the whole of his long life rarely visited any part of his dominions. "Our sons some slave of greatness may behold, Cast in the genuine Asiatic mould, Who of three realms shall condescend to know No more than he can spy from Windsor's brow."[94] [94] _Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers._ He never went to Hanover or Scotland or Ireland or Wales, and in England his longest journeys were to Cheltenham, Weymouth, and Portsmouth, which latter town he visited twice, but solely to make an official inspection of a battleship. "There shall he see, as other folks have seen, That ships have anchors, and that seas are green; Shall count the tackling trim, the streamers fine, With Bradshaw prattle, and with Sandwich dine; And then row back, amidst the cannon's roar, As safe, as sage, as when he left the shore."[95] [95] _Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers._