"SHOWMAN OF THE HEAVENS" 95 



with permission to make and sell telescopes for his 

 own behoof, and with the requirement that he should 

 act as "showman of the heavens" to princes and 

 princesses, it was neither an uncommon nor an un- 

 generous act in the world of science. It is presented 

 to us in the gossip of the day as lacking in generosity, 

 and reflecting small credit on the King and his advisers. 

 The salary of Dr. Maskelyne, then Astronomer-Royal, 

 and the head of the most famous observatory in 

 Europe, a man of high standing to boot, and of world- 

 wide scientific attainment, was only 300, to the dis- 

 credit of the nation, not of the King. Besides, the 

 Civil List from which, presumably, the pension was 

 paid, was then in a transition and probably a crippled 

 state. Two years before, Mr. Dunning moved in the 

 Commons, and, after a feeble resistance, carried, " That 

 it was competent to the House, whenever they thought 

 proper, to examine into and correct abuses in the 

 expenditure of the Civil List revenues." The Court 

 required to be on its guard, as, in the very year the 

 pension was granted to Herschel, the King sent a 

 message to the Commons, " requesting a discharge of 

 arrears of Civil List, amounting to nearly 296,000 ; 

 the House voted the requisite sum." 1 



The endowment of research was far from being a 

 new thing in Europe. It had been the work of princes ; 

 it was now becoming the work of parliaments and 

 people. James I. when, in defiance of the witches of 

 Scotland and Denmark, he crossed the North Sea to 



1 Adolphus, History, iii. 119, 372 (1780, 1782). By the Parlia- 

 mentary regulations passed in 1782 "no pension was to exceed 300 a 

 year " (15th April) (Cassell's History, iv. 290-91). In 1783 arrears were 

 again accumulating (Cassell, iv. 301). 



