84 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



letters from Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal 

 Society. Herschel was rapidly outgrowing his sur- 

 roundings. The dullest eye could see that something 

 had to be done for the honour of the country. 

 Herschel, though resident in England, was not an 

 Englishman ; but he was a subject of the King of 

 England as Elector of Hanover, and the nation that 

 reaped the honour, it might soon come to be the profit, 

 of his discoveries, was bound to mark its sense of the 

 value it set upon his presence within its borders. The 

 Royal Society did what they could, but it was far 

 from enough. As they honoured Benjamin Franklin 

 with the Copley Medal in 1753 for "curious experi- 

 ments and observations on electricity," so they showed 

 their high regard for William Herschel by awarding 

 the same medal to him in November 1781 for his 

 " discovery of a new and singular star." On Decem- 

 ber 6 of that year he was also elected a Fellow of 

 the Society. But these honours did not meet the case. 

 They were prizes won in the race for fame ; they did 

 not provide a living or leisure for further triumphs. 

 But the King personally was bound to interpose. He 

 had a name throughout Europe for love of science, and 

 especially of astronomy, which no other monarch en- 

 joyed. A great French writer described him, long 

 before Herschel appeared above the horizon, as " veri- 

 tablement amateur de la Physique et de 1' Astronomic." 

 For years he had supported an observatory and a King's 

 Astronomer at Richmond. Parliament had provided 

 ample funds in the form of a Civil List, of which at that 

 time it got no account. But the funds were squandered 

 or spent with such a lavish hand that enormous arrears 

 remained unpaid. Apparently the King was helpless. 



