90 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



" granted to the King 80,000 a year for encouraging 

 sciences." She also believed that West the painter 

 and her brother were the first who benefited by this 

 grant. She is referring, of course, to the arrange- 

 ments regarding the Civil List, which came into effect 

 in 1782. 1 



It seems to me that the King had more serious 

 difficulties in dealing with William Herschel than are 

 generally supposed. Unquestionably he had deserted 

 the army of Hanover after a severe defeat, and in 

 presence of an advancing enemy. A quarter of a 

 century had passed since then ; but could the Elector 

 of Hanover, as King of Great Britain, pass over an 

 offence so grave, and knowingly honour the offender 

 even after that lapse of time? So long as it was 

 simply letting bygones be bygones, the matter was 

 easy of solution; but it came to have another look 

 when the offender was received under the shelter of 

 the palace, admitted to intercourse with the Royal 

 Family, and paid a pension out of the King's purse. 

 That the offence was unknown to the King is altogether 

 improbable. He knew Herschel's younger brother, 

 Alexander, and inquired after him at a state concert 

 in Buckingham House. He knew also the Griesbachs, 

 Herschel's nephews, and employed five of them at these 

 concerts. A family from the town of Hanover, and of 

 such outstanding ability, would be so much in the 

 mouth of Hanoverians that echoes at least of their 

 gossip could not fail to reach the King's ears. The 

 King's knowledge of every petty detail of gossip among 

 the Hanoverians had passed into a proverb in England. 

 "Modern poets differ from the Elizabethans in this," 



1 Memoirs, p. 321. 



