240 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



similar to the claims made .n ll.-ix-li.-l l.y visitors 

 from Windsor Castle, Macaulay reprobates, an- 1 j ust ly 

 reprobates, the thoughtless cm. It \, to which it exposed 

 a woman who could have earned by her pen ten times 

 tin income sin nn-ivod from < lancing attendance on a 

 <jUreii. But the Queen was not altogether in fault 

 in her case; nor was the Kiu^ in Herschel's. It \\.is 

 Court etiquette, cruel and thoughtless unquestionably : 

 "a slavery of li\. years, of five years taken from tin 

 best part of her life, and wasted in menial drudgery or 

 creations duller than even menial drudgery, und.-r 

 Calling restraints, and amidst unfriendly or uninterest- 

 ing companions." 1 It was a huge mistake to cramp 

 the genius of the novelist or the astronomer by the 

 formalities and triflings of a Court. It did little or no 

 harm to the latter; it did irreparable wrong to the 

 former. People who have lived in a crowd all tin h 

 lives, to whom indeed it is the breath of life, cannot 

 understand that it may be poison to genius. 



Sir Joseph Banks also was dead. A year after his 

 death a German visitor to this country gives a pleasing 

 picture of an uncommon triumvirate of rank and 

 science. " In England," he says, " people have long 



accustomed to associate with their recollectioi 

 their late revered Monarch, the names of these two 

 veterans in science, Herschel and Banks, both not only 

 of nearly the same age with the King, but also dis- 

 tinguished by him with peculiar favour, and frequent 

 personal intercourse. All the three members of this 

 singular triumvirate were still living when I visited 

 England; now the astronomer is the only survivor." 

 " With good reason did Cuvier, in the panegyric he pro- 

 1 Macaulay, vii. 25. 



