104 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



prove a tax upon him, especially if he had been up all 

 night watching the heavens. Still, it seemed a leaf 

 taken out of the book of duties laid on Galileo by 

 Cosmo de Medici, and promised to be both a relaxation 

 and a pleasure. The same cannot be said of the other 

 part of Herschel's commission. He was at liberty and 

 he was encouraged to make reflecting telescopes for 

 sale, as a means of adding to his income. An arrange- 

 ment so unwise, from the shopkeeping look it wore, 

 should not have been proposed or sanctioned. It was 

 a source of profit to the astronomer; but it did not 

 differ from allowing Herschel to set up a factory for 

 the manufacture and sale of telescopes with the Royal 

 arms over the door, and "By appointment Royal 

 Astronomer to the King" painted underneath. No 

 one who reads the language in which Buonaparte 

 wrote to Laplace not many years after, can be surprised 

 that, in view of this lowering of science, England 

 should have been spoken of by him as a nation of 

 shopkeepers. The King himself became Herschel's 

 first customer, ordering from him four 10-f eet reflectors, 

 one of which was intended as a present to the 

 University of Gottingen, which had been founded by 

 his grandfather, George II., forty-five years before, 

 and was then rising into fame. These four reflectors 

 cost six hundred and forty guineas apiece, and yielded 

 a handsome profit. 1 Others, less costly, but still re- 

 munerative, were also ordered. Two hundred guineas 



1 This looks like the market price, if we may judge from Short's 

 charges forty years before. "After Short had established himself in 

 London in 1742 he received 630 for a 12-feet reflector from Lord 

 Thomas Spencer. In 1752 he executed one for the King of Spain for 

 1200. The King of Denmark offered twelve hundred guineas" for 



