38 Caroline Lucrctia Hcrschel. [1775-1782. 



ther.* In general he was never unemployed at meals, but 

 was always at those times contriving or making drawings 

 of whatever came in his mind. Generally I was obliged 

 to read to him whilst he was at the turning lathe, or polish- 

 ing mirrors, Don Quixote, Arabian Nights' Entertainment, 

 the novels of Sterne, Fielding, <ic. ; serving tea and supper 

 without interrupting the work with which he w r as engaged, 

 .... and sometimes lending a hand. I became in time as 

 useful a member of the workshop as a boy might be to his 



master in the first year of his apprenticeship But 



as I was to take a part the next year in the oratorios, I had 

 for a whole twelvemonth two lessons per week from Miss 

 Fleming, the celebrated dancing mistress, to drill me for a 

 gentlewoman (God knows how she succeeded). So we lived 

 on without interruption. My brother Alex was absent from 

 Bath for some months every summer, but when at home 

 he took much pleasure to execute some turning or clock- 

 maker's work for his brother." 



News from Hanover put a sudden stop for a time to 

 all these labours. The mother wrote, in the utmost 

 distress, to say that Dietrich had disappeared from his 

 home, it was supposed with the intention of going to 

 India " with a young idler not older than himself." 

 His brother immediately left the lathe at which he- 

 was turning an eye-piece in cocoanut, and started for 



* " The grinding of specula used to be performed by the hand, no machinery 

 having been dirt-Hied sufficiently exact. The tool on which they were shaped 

 having been turned to the required form, and covered with coarse ornery and 

 water, they were ground on it to the necessary figure, and afterwards polished 

 by means of putty or oxide if tin, or pitch spread as a covering to the same tool 

 in the place />f the emery. To grind a speculum of six or eight inches in 

 diameter was % a work of no ordinary labour; and such a one used to be con- 

 sidered of great she." " Lord Itosse's Telescopes," 1844. 



