86 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



knowledge of "the handsome salary" was perhaps 

 defective. 



" Among the Bath visitors were many philosophical 

 gentlemen, who used to frequent the levees at St. 

 James's when in town. Colonel Walsh, 1 in particular, 

 informed my brother that from a conversation he had 

 had with His Majesty, it appeared that in the spring 

 he was to come with his seven-foot telescope to the 

 King. Similar reports he received from many others, 

 but they made no great impression nor caused any 

 interruption in his occupation or study," till " one 

 morning in Passion Week, as Sir William Watson was 

 with my brother, talking about the pending journey 

 to town, my eldest nephew arrived to pay us a visit, 

 and brought the confirmation that his uncle was ex- 

 pected with his instrument in town." 2 This nephew 

 was George Griesbach, son of the elder daughter in the 

 Herschel family, and a musician well known and 

 favoured at Court. A chaise was at the door to take 

 brother and sister to Bristol, ten miles away, for a 

 forenoon rehearsal of the Messiah, which was to be 

 performed in the evening. The conductor was too 

 much absorbed in his nephew's news from Court to 

 attend the rehearsal. Caroline was left to do it for 

 him, and to fill "the music box with the necessary 

 parts for between ninety and one hundred performers." 

 This was how news of the endowment of research came 

 from London to Bath. It was a reality, not a romance 

 gilded with glory, like the news brought by an imagin- 

 ary rider from Ghent to Aix. But the news, however 



1 Apparently one of the King's equerries, of whom we shall hear more 

 in the course of the story. 



2 Caroline Herschel, Memoirs, p. 44. 



