6 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



and which, after all, proved of no use to me afterwards, 

 except what little I knew of music, being just able to 

 play the second violin of an overture or easy quar- 

 tette, which my father took a pleasure in teaching 

 me. N.B. When my mother was not at home. 

 Amen." * 



The family, though poorly provided with worldly 

 goods, was richly endowed with mental gifts, which 

 had only to be well laid out to lead to wealth and 

 fortune. The father, Isaac Herschel, came of a sturdy 

 Protestant stock, which, about a century before his 

 birth on January 14, 1707, escaped persecution in 

 Moravia by emigrating to Saxony. Isaac's father was 

 there employed in the Royal gardens at Dresden, and 

 earned a name for himself as a skilful landscape 

 gardener. A passionate love of music, however, com- 

 pelled the son to forsake his father's business of 

 gardening, and betake him to his favourite study 

 under a hautboy player in the Royal band. After 

 pursuing the study at Berlin and Potsdam, he journeyed 

 in 1731 to Hanover, where he became a hautboy player 

 in the band of the Elector's Guards, and where he 

 married in the year following. George II. was then 

 Elector of Hanover. To that connection with Britain 

 was sometimes due our entanglement in the politics 

 and wars of the Continent, and the bringing across 

 of Hanoverian soldiers, perhaps of Hessians also, to 

 defend this country when threatened with invasion 

 by France. War brought its troubles to the Herschel 

 family. From these troubles arose singular com- 

 pensations for the advancement of science, the honour 

 of the family, and the welfare of mankind. On the 

 1 Memoirs, p. 299. 



