742 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



taintj whether I was to go or not. I resolved at last to prepare as far as lay in 

 my power for both cases by taking every chance, when all were from home, to 

 imitate, with a gag between my teeth, the solo part of concertos, shalce and all, 

 such as I had heard them play on the violin ; and I thus gained a tolerable execu- 

 tion before I learned to sing. I next began to knit ruffles, etc. For my mother and 

 Brother Dietrich, I knitted as many stockings as would last two years at least." 



During all this time she was sorely troubled about her duty in the 

 matter of leaving her mother, and she thus speaks of her feelings : 



" In this manner (making prospective clothes for them) I tried to still the 

 compunctiou I felt at leaving relatives who, I feared, would lose some of their 

 comforts by my desertion, and nothing but the belief of returning to them full 

 of knowledge and accomplishments could have supported me in the parting mo- 

 ment. . . . My brother William, at last, quite unexpectedly arrived. . . . His 

 stay at Hanover could at the utmost not be prolonged above a fortnight. . . . 

 My mother had consented to my going with him, and the anguish at my leaving 

 her was somewhat alleviated by my brother settling a small annuity on her, by 

 which she would be enabled to keep an attendant to supply my place. . . . But 

 I will not attempt to describe my feelings when the parting moment arrived and 

 I left my dear mother and most dear Dietrich, on Sunday, August 16, 17T2." 



After a dismal journey of six days and nights, in an open post- 

 wagon through Holland, and a stormy passage across the Channel, she 

 arrived in England on the 26th, bareheaded, her bonnet having been 

 blown into a canal from the post-wagon, and the first part of her " Rec- 

 ollections " ends with an account of her experiences in London at this 

 time. 



Before resuming Miss Herschel's diary it is needful to explain that, 

 at the time she came to live with him, William Herschel was an emi- 

 nent teacher of music at Bath, an organist with a choir under his man- 

 agement, a composer of anthems, chants, etc., and director of public 

 concerts. But he followed music solely for the income it aiforded ; 

 every leisure moment he could get by night or by day being devoted 

 to the study of astronomy. He was known among his music-pupils as 

 an astronomer, and some of them had lessons from him in this science 

 as well as in music. He early applied his inventive talents to the im- 

 provement of telescopes. He began by getting from one of the shops 

 a two-and-a-half-foot Gregorian telescope which served for viewing 

 the heavens and for studying the construction of the instrument. 

 Then he began to make instruments himself, which he went on im- 

 proving and enlarging till at last the mirror for his great forty-foot 

 telescope resulted. Such were the occupations of the brother whom 

 Miss Herschel came to England to help. What she did and with what 

 success is told in the following extracts from her " Recollections : " 



"On the afternoon of August 28, 1772, I arrived with my brother at his 

 house at Bath, No. 7 New King Street. I knew no more English than the few 

 words which I had on our journey learned to repeat like a parrot, and it may 

 be easily supposed that it would require some time before I could feel comfort- 

 able among strangers. But, as the season for the arrival of visitors to the baths 



