BARGAINING WITH HERSCHEL 89 



Greenwich between the years 1*765, 1793." l Science 

 was thus the mother of peace and goodwill between 

 two bitterly hostile nations. 



An attack of influenza, which wore off in less than 

 a week ; a series of dinners, at which the new lion of 

 science was exhibited to the gaze of " the best company," 

 and little was talked " of but what they called his great 

 discoveries " ; two nights of star-gazing at Greenwich ; 

 state concerts, at which the King " kept him in conver- 

 sation for half an hour," and even asked George 

 Griesbach for a solo-concerto that his uncle might hear 

 him play; acting the showman by explaining the 

 speculum to the Princesses, and, on a cloudy evening, 

 showing them, " with fine effect " through the telescope, 

 a pasteboard Saturn at the bottom of the garden wall," 

 these and other tricks of this " showman of the 

 heavens " were his employment for the next few weeks. 

 " Company is not always pleasing," he wrote, " and I 

 would much rather be polishing a speculum." In the 

 midst of this mental dissipation he was brought down 

 from heaven to earth by his money running short. 

 Several times he wrote to Bath for a supply ! Delays 

 so unnecessary, and the thoughtless indifference with 

 which a working musician was kept hanging on at 

 Court, without regard to his loss or his expenses, were 

 not creditable to those concerned. It looks as if there 

 were a hitch somewhere. 



His sister relates in a letter written in 1842, twenty 

 years after his death, that the King was surrounded 

 by wiseacres, who knew how to bargain. They pro- 

 posed to send her brother back to Hanover on a salary 

 of 100 a year. Her idea was that Parliament had 



1 JEdin. Rev., 1809, pp. 65, 69. 



