be broken up, and the astronomy would be the ruin of the family. (A
little of good old dame Herschel's housewifely leaven here, perhaps.)
But William's letters from London to "Dear Lina" must soon have quieted
her womanly fears. William had actually been presented to the king, and
"met with a very gracious reception." He had explained the solar system
to the king and queen, and his telescope was to be put up first at
Greenwich and then at Richmond. The Greenwich authorities were delighted
with his instrument; they have seen what Herschel calls "_my_ fine
double stars" with it. "All my papers are printing," he tells Lina with
pardonable pride, "and are allowed to be very valuable." But he himself
is far from satisfied as yet with the results of his work. Evidently no
small successes in the field of knowledge will do for William Herschel.
"Among opticians and astronomers," he writes to Lina, "nothing now is
talked of but _what they call_ my great discoveries. Alas! this
shows how far they are behind, when such trifles as I have seen and done
are called _great_. Let me but get at it again! I will make such
telescopes and see such things!" Well, well, William Herschel, in that
last sentence we get the very keynote of true greatness and true genius.

But must he go back quietly to Bath and the toils of teaching? "An
intolerable waste of time," he thought it. The king happily relieved him
from this intolerable waste. He offered Herschel a salary of L200 a year
if he would come and live at Datchet, and devote himself entirely to
astronomical observations. It was by no means a munificent sum for a
king to offer for such labour; but Herschel gladly accepted it, as it
would enable him to give up the interruption of teaching, and spend all
his time on his beloved astronomy. His Bath friend, Sir William Watson,
exclaimed when he heard of it, "Never bought monarch honour so cheap."
Herschel was forty-three when he removed to Datchet, and from that day
forth he lived almost entirely in his observatory, wholly given up to