Page:Hector Macpherson - Herschel (1919).djvu/31



1st August, 1782, William and Caroline Herschel, in accordance with the obligation of the holder of the new office of King's Astronomer to reside near Windsor, entered into occupation of a large house on Datchet Common. The house was in a ruinous condition and the garden and grounds were overgrown with weeds. Nevertheless there were, in Herschel's eyes, compensating advantages. There were outhouses available for the work of telescope-making; a large laundry capable of refitting as a library; and, most important of all, a grass lawn where telescopes could be erected. Despite the discomforts of the half-ruinous house, and the separation from congenial friendships—most of all from Alexander Herschel, who remained in Bath to continue his musical career—William Herschel was in the best of health and spirits. "Much of my brother's time," Caroline Herschel records, "was taken up in going when the evenings were clear to the Queen's Lodge to show the King, etc., objects through the seven-foot". Undoubtedly there was much exacting and irksome duty of this kind, of which Caroline complains in her reminiscences again and again. Yet despite this, and despite also the smallness of his salary, Herschel always expressed gratitude for the King's generosity. The personal relations between George III and his astronomer seem to have been consistently congenial; and one cannot help feeling that something more than expediency