APPENDIX 259 



pupils for the harpsichord and violin. That one of the 

 principal members of the Pump-room band should be 

 appointed organist in the newly erected Octagon Chapel 

 is most likely, and he seems to have occupied the post for 

 about nine years. "He took great delight in a choir of 

 singers who performed the cathedral service at the Octagon 

 Chapel, for whom he composed many excellent anthems, 

 chants, and psalm tunes." Caroline Herschel adds : " This 

 anthem was left with the rest of my brother's sacred com- 

 positions, which were left in trust with one of the choristers. 

 . . . All is lost. . . . With difficulty, many years after, one 

 Te Deum was recovered, and when I was in Bath in 1800 I 

 obtained two or three torn books of odd parts." It is 

 difficult to understand why the compositions were left at all, 

 still more to understand what Mr. Linley had to do with the 

 matter, for " the chorister's wife openly charged Mr. Linley 

 with having taken possession of these treasures." J 



The story in Campbell's magazine proceeds : " Sir William 

 pursued his profession at Bath for some years, highly esteemed 

 by a numerous circle of friends, and increasing in fame and 

 fortune." Whether this was fact or poetic licence may be 

 matter of debate ; but the words attributed by the writer to 

 King George in., that "Herschel should not sacrifice his 

 valuable time to crotchets and quavers," may justly be 

 accepted as genuine. And the two sentences with which the 

 notice concludes go far to prove that the writer of it was the 

 poet-editor himself ; " Sir William possessed ' the milk of 

 human kindness' in an eminent degree, and was most 

 anxious to gratify his numerous visitors by explaining 'the 

 complicated machinery of his mind ' in the simplest manner 

 possible. No one ever returned from his hospitable cottage 

 without feeling gratified with the urbanity of the man, and 

 improved by the productions of his genius." 



A relic of these early days is still preserved at Bath in the 

 1 Memoirs, note at p. 36. 



