and comparative wealth. Besides his chapel services, and his later
engagement in the orchestra of the Assembly Rooms, he had often as
many as thirty-eight private pupils in music every week; and he
also composed a few pieces, which were published in London with
some modest success. Still, in spite of all these numerous
occupations, the eager young German found a little leisure time to
devote to self-education; so much so that, after a fatiguing day of
fourteen or sixteen hours spent in playing the organ and teaching,
he would "unbend his mind" by studying the higher mathematics, or
give himself a lesson in Greek and Italian. At the same time; he
was also working away at a line of study, seemingly useless to him,
but in which he was afterwards to earn so great and deserved a
reputation. Among the books he read during this Bath period were
Smith's "Optics" and Lalande's "Astronomy." Throughout all his own
later writings, the influence of these two books, thoroughly
mastered by constant study in the intervals of his Bath music
lessons, makes itself everywhere distinctly felt.

Meanwhile, the family at Hanover had not been flourishing quite so
greatly as the son William was evidently doing in wealthy England.
During all those years, the young man had never forgotten to keep
up a close correspondence with his people in Germany. Already, in
1764, during his Yorkshire days, William Herschel had managed out
of his Savings as an oboe-player to make a short trip to his old
home; and his sister Carolina, afterwards his chief assistant in
his astronomical labours, notes with pleasure the delight she felt
in having her beloved brother with her once more, though she, poor
girl, being cook to the household apparently, could only enjoy his
society when she was not employed "in the drudgery of the
scullery." A year later, when William had returned to England