96 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



fetch home his bride, spent eight days under the roof 

 of "that princely promoter of astronomy/' Tycho 

 Brahe. He found the astronomer living in comfort, 

 encouraged by the splendid allowances of the King of 

 Denmark, and able to build an observatory, which is 

 said to have cost 20,000. Though always in straits 

 for money, he not only honoured Tycho at his depar- 

 ture with " a magnificent present, but also addressed 

 to him a copy of verses." One of James's grandsons, 

 Charles II., appointed Flamsteed to be Astronomer-Royal 

 at a salary of 100 a year. So inadequately was he 

 paid that he had to eke out his income by taking 

 orders in the Church of England. But James's great- 

 grandson, William, was a more generous patron of 

 science than his uncle. In his reign Newton received 

 the post of Master of the Mint with a salary of 1200 

 or 1500 a year, at a time when the commercial interests 

 of England required a man of great intelligence, honesty, 

 and resource to rescue society from the embarrassments 

 into which incompetence and gambling had plunged 

 the Mint and the country. A man of ability was 

 required to cope with the evils of the time, and 

 Newton, in spite of the sneers with which his appoint- 

 ment was hailed even by Pope, proved himself to be 

 the right man in the right place. 1 But the sneer cast 

 at our Government was true then, and may still be 

 true, as it was seventy years ago when first uttered, 

 " Able men are sure of office when its emoluments 

 are abolished." Men of science, men devoted to 

 the best interests of their country, Dalton, Priestley, 

 Ivory, Young, Wollaston, and Murdoch, to name no 

 others, were treated with neglect, or considered well 



1 Macanlay's Works iv. 248. 



