208 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



said that Napoleon, a trained and experienced officer 

 of artillery, a member of the mathematical section 

 of the Institute of France, and the founder of the 

 Egyptian Institute, knew little more of science than 

 any well-educated gentleman. To compare his know- 

 ledge of astronomy with that of George in. is unfair. 

 If Herschel meant nothing more than what the King 

 learned from him and Mainburg and Be vis during 

 half a century, of the ways and methods of observing, 

 it may be perfectly true, and yet may have been 

 such as Napoleon, with his natural quickness and 

 his knowledge of mathematics, could have picked 

 up in an hour or two. But a comparison of the 

 two men one doing little more than signing his 

 name, the other leading mighty armies, fighting 

 terrible battles, and ruling almost a whole continent 

 seems exceedingly absurd, from an intellectual point 

 of view. Nor should it be forgotten that Napoleon, 

 by taking the learned men of France to Egypt with 

 him, entertaining them at his table on shipboard, 

 and protecting them in their researches, laid the 

 foundation of a new science, which has filled man- 

 kind with wonder the languages and records of 

 the ancient worlds of Egypt and Assyria. To say 

 that he affected to know more than he did know 

 was, if true, a justifiable pretence in a man ruling 

 over many nations, and absorbed in multitudinous 

 details. But to charge him with hypocrisy for 

 expressing his views on Almighty Wisdom is not 

 creditable to either poet or astronomer. If Herschel 

 conversed with him by means of an interpreter, the 

 latter may have done, and possibly would do, injustice 

 to the Emperor, perhaps to the astronomer also. But 



