Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/654

646 Sir William Herschel's writings, spread over more than forty years, are all disconnected—they are the mere transcript of the work on which he was for the moment occupied. They have never been collected, but remain scattered over more than forty volumes of the "Philosophical Transactions." His life affords but few incidents for the biographer. From the time when he first gave himself up to astronomy until his death, he hardly ever absented himself for more than a few days from his telescopes. The record of his life is the record of his work. Apart from the result of his scientific inquiries, the most industrious biographer would not be able to put together the materials for a moderate-sized volume. How much the greater, then, is the regret that the present opportunity has been allowed to escape!

Though M. Arago's analysis of Herschel's labours is short, it is most valuable, and it is pleasant to find ourselves under such good guidance. As a biographer we follow him with distrust; for, to say the truth, M. Arago exhibits that recklessness of foreign geography and nomenclature which even highly-educated Frenchmen sometimes permit themselves to indulge. His first page contains two random shots of this kind: he says "Abraham Herschel demeurait à Mähren, d'où il fut expulsé" etc., apparently unaware that Mähren is not a town, but the German name for Moravia. Moreover, it was not Abraham Herschel, but Hans, his father, who was driven from his home.

We should not have thought it worth while to criticise M. Arago's geography, or the genealogy which he gives of the Herschel family, were it not that others have followed him in the further mistake of asserting that Jacob Herschel was the father of William and Caroline. Jacob Herschel was an elder brother of Sir William, and at the time of the latter's birth in 1738 was a child of four years old.

The family of whom William and Caroline Herschel were members all showed remarkable talent at an early age. Their father was an excellent musician, and he trained all his children to follow his own profession. Each of them, when they attained the age of two years, went to the Hanoverian garrison school, and there William soon outstripped his brothers, and at last caused the schoolmaster to acknowledge that the boy had got beyond him. By the time he was fourteen William was a good performer on the oboe and the violin, and had learned all the schoolmaster could teach of French and mathematics. Caroline never had much schooling. Her mother considered learning unnecessary for a woman, and preferred to keep her daughter closely employed in household work to allowing her time for mental cultivation. The consequence of this prejudice was that she grew up almost to womanhood without possessing more than the merest rudiments of knowledge. She could read and write, but that was all. It was not till many years afterwards, when she was with her brother William in England, that she began to learn arithmetic. This brings into still stronger relief the native shrewdness which enabled Miss Herschel to pick up, in the midst of other avocations, accomplishments such as distinguished her later life.

For many years before Caroline Herschel's birth, her father's constitution had been impaired by the hardships of war. After the battle of Dettingen, where King George II. of England, at the head of an army of English, Hanoverians, and Hessians, drove the French, under De Noailles, across the Main, the unfortunate bandmaster of the Royal Guard lay all night in a wet furrow, and in consequence contracted an asthmatic affection which embittered the whole remainder of his life. But he still remained in the army. Among the earliest of Caroline Herschel's recollections is the sight of the confirmation of her brother William, on which occasion he wore "his new Oboësten uniform," for he as well as his elder brother Jacob had joined their father as musicians in the band of the Guard. They were, indeed, a family of musicians, for the elder daughter married another bandsman in the same regiment, named Griesbach. Miss Herschel records that her father never much approved of the match, for the somewhat quaint reason that Griesbach was but an indifferent musician.

Alexander Herschel, the eldest of the sons, was, though not a soldier, a most accomplished musician: indeed, when William and Caroline deserted music for astronomy in later years, Alexander still adhered to his first profession, though he had a large share of his distinguished brother's mechanical ingenuity, and became an efficient maker of mathematical and optical instruments for his observatory.

When Caroline was about five years old the home in Hanover was broken up, and, as events turned out, it was never