HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



language did not then rank high in the estimation 



ings and princelings who made a pretence to 

 literntu iv. It was the tongue of rude and ignorant 

 boors. Among them French was the language of 

 learning, literature, ami politeness. William Hei 

 was too |iiick-witted to negl'-rt tin- laii-ua^.- !' tin- 

 country he was destined to look forward to for j 

 mem. ||. Krcamc a pn-lici- nt in KnidMi, though at 



bid it was Sometimes dictionary I. uitli 



its long Latin words, that cropped up in his \\ 

 pages. Towards the end of his life, his mother tongue, 



ude language of Germany, as it was then derm- 1 

 became somewhat unfamiliar to him. His Hater Caro- 



:fter fifty years' residence in this country, had (<> 

 consult an English dictionary to find or recover words 

 sufficiently strong to describe the objects of In i 

 like. Her brother, after a longer residence in England, 

 found difficulty in carrying <>n a conversation in 

 (lei-man with the Chanc< llor of tin- I 'niversity of 

 Halle, who paid him a vi.sit at Slouidi shortly I- 

 tin- fliv,r Q| hi lii'r; -All Jicc'nunts IV.. in li 



country seemed to please him, although tin- (Jcnii.ni 

 language had become somewhat less i'amiliar to his 

 ear." So the visitor wrote. Both brother and sister 

 appear to have felt as Caroline tVlt when she wrote 

 in her eighty-sixth year that she was a countrywoman 

 of the Duke of Cambridge and would not be a 

 Hanoverian. 



The schooldays of William Herschel ended at the 

 age of fourteen : his ival education then hc^an. l T nd-r 

 the careful instruction of his Father, he had become 

 an excellent performer on the oboe and violin. Hut 

 the father had higher views for a young man of his 



