Carolina's diary goes on:
"Sir William Watson returned to Bath after a fort-night or three weeks' stay. From him we heard that my brother was invited to [Pg 66] Greenwich with the telescope, where he was met by a numerous party of astronomical and learned gentlemen, and trials of his instrument were made. In these letters he complained of being obliged to lead an idle life, having nothing to do but to pass between London and Greenwich. Sir William received many letters, which he was so kind as to communicate to us. By these, and from those to Alexander or to me, we learned that the king wished to see the telescope at Windsor. At last a letter, dated July 2, arrived from Therese, and from this and several succeeding ones we gathered that the king would not suffer my brother to return to his profession again, and by his writing several times for a supply of money we could only suppose that he himself was in uncertainty about the time of his return.
"In the last week of July my brother came home, and immediately prepared for removing to Datchet, where he had taken a house with a garden and grass-plat annexed, quite suitable for the purpose of an observing-place. Sir William Watson spent nearly the whole time at our house, and he was not the only friend who truly grieved at my brother's going from Bath; or feared his having perhaps agreed to no very advantageous offers; their fears were, in fact, not without reason. . . . The prospect of entering again on the toils of teaching, etc., which awaited my brother at home (the months of leisure being now almost gone by), appeared to him an intolerable waste of time, and by way of alternative he chose to be royal astronomer, with a [Pg 67] salary of £200 a year. Sir William Watson was the only one to whom the sum was mentioned, and he exclaimed, 'Never bought monarch honor so cheap!' To every other inquirer, my brother's answer was that the king had provided for him."
On the 1st of August, 1782, the family removed to Datchet. The last musical duty was performed on Whit-Sunday, 1782, in St. Margaret's Chapel, Bath, when the anthem for the day was of Herschel's own composition.
The end of the introductory epoch of his life is reached. Henceforth he lived in his observatory, and from his forty-fourth year onwards he only left it for short periods to go to London to submit his classic memoirs to the Royal Society. Even for these occasions he chose periods of moonlight, when no observations could be made.
He was a private man no longer. Henceforth he belongs to the whole world.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Probably on the model of one of Short's Gregorian telescopes, which were then the best instruments of the kind.
[11] For a description of the main points of Herschel's processes of making reflectors, which will illustrate his strong mechanical talents, see Encyclopædia Britannica, eighth edition, article Telescope.
[12] These have never been published, nor is it likely at this day, when our measuring instruments are so greatly improved, that they would be of any material value to science, although of interest as giving the proofs of Herschel's assiduity and skill. He was always more than the maker of telescopes, for he was never content until they were applied to the problems of astronomy.