absorbing. Its attraction seems to be irresistible. Once an astronomer,
always an astronomer; the stars, we may fancy, will not relax the spell
they lay upon their votary. He willingly withdraws himself from the din
and gaiety of social life, to shut himself up in his chamber, and, with
the magic tube due to the genius of a Galileo, survey with ever-new
delight the celestial wonders. So was it with Tycho Brahé, and
Copernicus, and Kepler; so was it, as the following pages will show,
with that remarkable family of astronomers--astronomers for three
generations--the HERSCHELS.




CHAPTER II.


In the quiet city of Hanover, nearly a century and a half ago, lived a
professor of music, by name Isaac Herschel, a Protestant in religion,
though presumably of Jewish descent. He had been left an orphan at the
early age of eleven, and his friends wished him to adopt the vocation of
a landscape-gardener; but being passionately fond of music, and having
acquired some skill on the violin, he left Dresden, his birthplace, in
order to seek his fortune; wandering from place to place, until at
Hanover, in 1731, he obtained an engagement in the band of the Guards.
Soon afterwards he married; and by his wife, Anna Ilse Moritzen, had ten
children, four of whom died in infancy. Of the others, two--a brother
and a sister--lived to distinguish themselves by their intellectual
power; and all true lovers of science will regard with reverence the
memories of William and Caroline Herschel.