98 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



country, and seeing where one source at least of its 

 true greatness lay, called attention to our rulers' dis- 

 regard of education and science. " The return of the 

 sword to its scabbard" in 1815, says an author who 

 wrote fifteen years later, " seems to have been the signal 

 for one universal effort to recruit exhausted resources, 

 to revive industry and civilisation, and to direct to their 

 proper objects the genius and talent which war had 

 either exhausted in its service or repressed in its 

 desolations. In this rivalry of skill, England alone 

 has hesitated to take a part." France was leading the 

 way, and was making up the ground it had lost. 

 " Let us frankly acknowledge the fact," Arago wrote, 

 "at the time when Herschel was prosecuting his 

 beautiful observations, there existed in France no 

 instrument adapted for developing them ; we had not 

 even the means of verifying them. Fortunately for 

 the scientific honour of our country, mathematical 

 analysis is also a powerful instrument. Laplace gave 

 ample proof of this on a memorable occasion, when 

 from the retirement of his chamber he predicted, he 

 minutely announced, what the excellent astronomer 

 of Windsor would see with the largest telescopes 

 which were ever constructed by the hand of man." 

 And he adds, " It is for nations especially to bear in 

 remembrance the ancient adage, noblesse oblige ! " ! 



It was not and had not been an uncommon thing 

 for kings and princes to encourage research, when 

 George in. extended his patronage to the toiling 

 musician of Bath. For two hundred years, at least, 

 it had been a common thing in Europe so common, 

 indeed, that, if Herschel thought of it as a possibility 



1 Arago, Biographies, 223, 237. 



