44 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



oratorios even at Bristol, was a favourite at Court, 

 and was famous throughout Europe. Truly it may be 

 said to Herschel what the passing traveller said to 

 Archytas, 



" Nee quidquam tibi prodest 

 Aerias tentasse domos animoque rotundum 

 Percurrisse polum morituro." 



Still, there can be no doubt that his discoveries became 

 the talk of London and the world. Perhaps, also, 

 many a British patriot, in indignant condemnation 

 of the folly and tyranny which alienated the United 

 States of America from the parent stock, was echoing 

 the words of Horace Walpole, " Mr. Herschel will 

 content me if he can discover thirteen provinces," 

 among his twenty millions of worlds, " well inhabited 

 by men and women, and protected by the law of 

 nations, and can annex them to the crown of Great 

 Britain, in lieu of those it has lost beyond the 

 Atlantic." 1 



1 Letters, vi. 258. On Herschel's life in England, and especially in 

 Bath, see Appendix. 



