The next circumstance we find, (for there is no connected history of this discussion, which exists only in a number of detached pamphlets,) is the delivery of the watch to Dr. Maskelyne, at the Royal Observatory, in May, 1766, that its rate of going might there be tried. The Report of the Astronomer Royal states, that it could not be depended upon within a degree of longitude in a voyage of six weeks; and a very angry pamphlet, published by Harrison in the following year, accuses Maskelyne of having treated the instrument unfairly. Many circumstances are stated which now appear ludicrous, and some which, if true, would have reflected discredit on the Commissioners. But nothing can be inferred, after the refusal of Harrison to accede to the very reasonable demand of the Commissioners, except that he was most probably as wrong in his suspicions as he had been foolish in his dealings. The end of this dispute was, that in 1767 Harrison complied with the conditions insisted upon; and, it having been found that his improvements were such as admitted of execution by another person, he received the whole sum awarded to him by the Act of Parliament. Harrison was not a well-educated man, and was deficient in the power of expressing his meaning clearly. It was easier for him, no doubt, to make two watches than to explain one; and hence, perhaps, his aversion to “men of theory,” who troubled him for descriptions and explanations. He died in 1776, at his house in Red Lion Square, having been engaged during the latter years of his life in bringing his improvements still nearer to perfection. His last work, which was tried in 1772, was found to have erred only four seconds and a half in ten weeks. In his younger days, some church-bells, which were out of tune, set him upon examining the musical scale, with a view to correct them. He communicated his ideas on the subject to Dr. Smith, who confirmed and extended them in his well-known work on Harmonics. In the Preface it is stated that Harrison made the interval of the major-third bear to that of the octave the proportion of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. This, he said, he did on the authority of a friend, who assured him it would give the best scale. Harrison himself wrote a treatise on the scale, but we do not know whether it was published. He is, on the whole, a fine instance of the union of originality with perseverance. The inventions, of which it takes so short a space to tell the history, were the work of fifty years of labour, and to them the art of constructing chronometers, and consequently the science of navigation, is indebted for much of its present advanced state. [Illustration: _Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._ MONTAIGNE. _From an original Picture at Paris, in the “Dépot des Archives du Royaume.”_ Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._ ] [Illustration]