C, three sides of a triangle, and
declares that going over A and B, one after the other, is equivalent, in
change of place, to going over C at once. My critic, who might, if he
pleased, have objected to extension, insisted upon reading me in unextended
meaning.

On the other hand, it must be said that those who wrote on the other idea
wrote very obscurely about it and justified Des Cartes (_De Methodo_)[463]
when he said: "Algebram vero, ut solet doceri, animadverti certis regulis
et numerandi formulis ita esse contentam, ut videatur potius ars quaedam
confusa, cujus usu ingenium quodam modo turbatur et obscuratur, quam
scientia qua excolatur et perspicacius {205} reddatur."[464] Maseres wrote
this sentence on the title of his own work, now before me; he would have
made it his motto if he had found it earlier.

There is, I believe, in Cobbett's _Annual Register_,[465] an account of an
interview between Maseres and Cobbett when in prison.

The conversation of Maseres was lively, and full of serious anecdote: but
only one attempt at humorous satire is recorded of him; it is an
instructive one. He was born in 1731 (Dec. 15), and his father was a
refugee. French was the language of the house, with the pronunciation of
the time of Louis XIV. He lived until 1824 (May 19), and saw the race of
refugees who were driven out by the first Revolution. Their pronunciation
differed greatly from his own; and he used to amuse himself by mimicking
them. Those who heard him and them had the two schools of pronunciation
before them at once; a thing which seldom happens. It might even yet be
worth while to examine the Canadian pronunciation.

Maseres went as Attorney-General to Quebec; and was appointed Cursitor
Baron of our Exchequer in 1773. There is a curious story about his mission
to Canada, which I have heard as good tradition, but have never seen in
print. The reader shall have it as cheap as I; and I confess I rather
believe it. Maseres was inveterately honest; he could not, at the bar, bear
to see his own client victorious, when he knew his cause was a bad one. On
a certain occasion he was in a cause which he knew would go against him if
a certain case were quoted. Neither the judge nor the opposite counsel
seemed to remember this case, and Maseres could not help dropping an
allusion which brought it out. {206} His business as a barrister fell off,
of course. Some time after, Mr. Pitt (Chatham) wanted a lawyer to send to
Canada