\INING WITH I! 89 



Greenwich between the yew 1765, Science 



wan thiiH the mother of peace and goodwill between 

 two l.iu.-i iy hofttiie nations. 



attack of influenza, which won- oil* in lorn tlian 

 a week ; a aeriea of dinners, at which the new lion of 

 science waa exhil 10 gaze of "the beat company ," 



an I liul.-waa talked lohai they called his great 



diacoveriea " ; two nights of star-gazing at Greenwich ; 

 state concerts, at which the King " kept him in conver- 

 ilf an hour," and even asked George 

 Griesbach for a solo-concerto that hit* uncle might hear 

 him play; acting the showman by explaining th< 

 speculum to the Princesses, and, on a clou-iy \oning, 

 showing them, with fine eff ugh the telescope, 



a pasteboard Saturn at the bottom of the garden wall," 

 these and other tricks of this "showman of th< 

 heavens " were his employment for the next few weeks. 

 " Company is not always pleasing," he wrote, " and I 

 rather be polishing a speculum. In th< 

 i ni. 1st of this mental dissipation he was brought down 

 i heaven to earth !<\ his money running short. 

 Several times he wrote to Bath for a supply ! Delays 

 so unnecessary, and the thoughtless indifference with 

 which a working musician was kept hanging on at 

 without regard to his loss or his expenses, were 

 not creditable to those concerned. It looks as if there 

 were a hitch somewhere. 



His sister relates in a letter written in 1842, tw 

 years after his death, that the King was surrounded 

 by wiseacres, who knew how to bargain. They pro- 

 posed to send her brother back to Hanover on a salary 

 100 a year. Her idea was that Parliament had 



**., 1600, pp. 65, 69. 



