DELAYS AND DIFFICULTIES 91 



Keats wrote, while George ill. was living : " each of the 

 moderns, like an Elector of Hanover, governs his petty 

 state, and knows how many straws are swept daily 

 from the causeways in all his dominions, and has a 

 continual itching that all the housewives should have 

 their coppers well scoured." 1 It is manifest, too, that 

 Herschel had no desire to return to his Hanover home, 

 or even to the mother who aided him to escape in 

 1757, and was the foolish cause of many perplexities 

 and troubles. In fifteen years his visits were few, 

 only three apparently, and his stay was brief. There 

 was something in the air of the place that disagreed 

 with him. It may therefore be that the King required 

 to consult his ministers in Hanover before he could 

 overlook the offence of a young guardsman, who had 

 now become an astronomer, with whose fame all 

 Europe was ringing. For two months the uncertainty 

 about William Herschel's future continued. Communi- 

 cation with Hanover on business of state in those 

 days was conducted by a " quarterly messenger," who 

 was sometimes delayed, even in George iv.'s reign, 

 forty years after this time. Delay was thus perhaps 

 unavoidable. 2 Clearly, the King or his advisers could 

 not make up their minds what to do. At last they 

 came to a decision in the way people do when in doubt. 

 They split the difference, and made a bargain with 

 Herschel unworthy of the King and the country. It 

 looks as if Britain incurred odium for the sake of 

 Hanover. 



That the bargain included a pardon under the King's 



1 Life, February 3, 1818, i. 84. 



2 Memoirs of Sir William Knighton, i. 321 ; Car. Her. also, pp. 232, 

 240, 239. 



