This is a finely-expressed and profound thought, and the mind which originated it must indeed win our admiration and respect.
Surely the house in King Street, Bath, and the association with it, may well consecrate it as a shrine which all who appreciate true and honest labour, and brave struggles with difficulties, should visit. The discovery of the planet Uranus in that house was a grand achievement. The light thrown on the mysteries of double stars, and of the perpetual motion and marvellous evolutions of the milky way was scarcely a less memorable step towards the better understanding of the star-depths which mortals may well scan with bated breath, so infinite is the infinite! But it almost seems to me that pilgrims to the house where the great astronomer and musician lived and worked, may do well to think most of the faithful performance of duty, the unflinching perseverance, the courageous struggle with untold difficulties which was carried on by William and Caroline Herschel while the Bath season was at its height, and the butterflies of fashion and the votaries of pleasure danced and chattered, and sang and made merry in the assemblies, where a hundred years ago so many people whose names are now forgotten, flocked in the pursuit of health and amusement! There will always be these contrasts sharply defined. The bees and the butterflies go forth together over the same flowery pastures. There are countless hidden workers, unknown to fame, who yet do their part—if a humble part, in life—in the place appointed them by God. But there are some who by force of an indomitable will and the highest gifts of intellect and culture leave behind them a name which to all time shall be honoured, and Bath may think herself favoured that in the long list of distinguished men and women who have frequented that fair city and Queen of the West, she may write in letters of gold the names of William Herschel and his sister Caroline.
[1] DUELLING ON CLAVERTON DOWN.
In the year 1778 many foreign nobles made Bath their residence. The Viscount du Barré and two ladies of great beauty and accomplishments, and Count Rice, an Irish gentleman who had borne arms in the service of France, lived in the Royal Crescent.
A quarrel at cards between Du Barré and Rice resulted in an immediate challenge—given and accepted. At one o'clock in the morning of November 18, 1778, a coach was procured from the Three Tuns in Stall Street, and Claverton Down was reached at day-dawn.
"Each man," says a contemporary, "was armed with two pistols and a sword, the ground being marked out by the seconds. Du Barré fired first, and lodged a ball in Count Rice's thigh, which penetrated to the bone. Count Rice fired, and wounded Du Barré in the breast. Afterwards the pistols were thrown away, and the combatants took to their swords.
"The Viscount du Barré fell, and cried out, 'Je vous demande ma vie!' to which Count Rice answered, 'Je vous la donne!' and in a few moments Du Barré fell back and expired. Count Rice was brought with difficulty to Bath, being dangerously wounded; and was found guilty, at the Coroner's inquest held on the Viscount's body, of manslaughter.
"Du Barré's body was left exposed on Claverton Down the whole day, and was subsequently buried in Bathampton Churchyard. Count Rice recovered; he was tried at Taunton for murder, and acquitted. He died in Spain in 1809. A stone slab in a wall skirting Claverton Down marks the spot where Du Barré fell. The ivory hilt of the sword once belonging to Count Rice is now attached to the City Seal in the town clerk's office."—Condensed from R. E. Peach's "Rambles about Bath."
WORKS BY MRS. MARSHALL.
ON THE BANKS OF THE OUSE; or, Life in Olney a Hundred Years Ago.
"No better story than this has been written by Mrs. Marshall."—Guardian.
IN FOUR REIGNS: Recollections of Althea Allingham from George III. to Victoria.