Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/656

648 old age she often records how much she was touched by the respect shown to her on the occasions of her visits to the theatre, which she attended almost to the last, and where her diminutive stature made her a noticeable, as well as a familiar figure.

Miss Herschel's biographer does not tell us what became of William Herschel after his escape to England. M. Arago says that he was engaged by Lord Durham, as master of the band in an English regiment, then quartered on the borders of Scotland. The Gentleman's Magazine, probably with greater accuracy, states that, after struggling with great difficulties in London, he was engaged by the Earl of Darlington, to superintend and instruct a military band then forming by that nobleman in the county of Durham, and the opening thus afforded contributed so far to increase his reputation and connections, as to induce him to spend several years in the neighbourhood of Leeds, Doncaster, and Pontefract, where he had many pupils, and conducted public concerts and oratorios. Of this part of his life little is known; but in 1765, eight years after he had taken his hurried leave of Hanover, he was elected organist of the parish church at Halifax. A story is told of this election which bears an air of truth, and is likely enough, from the character of the man. One Joah Bates, a gentleman, well known to collectors of musical and literary anecdotes, was with a friend in the nave of the church at Halifax, when they were addressed by Herschel, at that time entirely unknown to them. He told them that he was a musician—that he desired to become the parish organist, but that he had never had an opportunity of playing on the organ. He added that his musical acquirements were considerable, and that if he were allowed the opportunity of practice, he could certainly learn to play before the day of the election. The story goes on to say that the friends were so struck with the young Hanoverian's modest self-confidence, that they gave him the opportunity he desired, and became his warm supporters. Be that as it may, he won the election; and the emoluments of the office at once put him beyond the reach of want, and gave him that leisure for self-cultivation which was such an object to his energetic mind. He plunged into mathematics with characteristic impetuosity, and at the same time found time for the study of Italian, Latin, and Greek. At first his mathematical studies were directed principally to the theory of harmonics; his principal assistant in that study being, according to Arago, a learned but very obscure mathematical work on the "Theory of Music," by Robert Smith. It was music, says Arago, which first led him to mathematics, and mathematics which made him famous. Robert Smith, successor to Cotes in the chair of natural philosophy at Cambridge, was the author of "A Complete System of Optics," which afterwards became one of William Herschel's inseparable companions. "He used to retire to bed, with a basin of milk or glass of water, and Smith's "Harmonics and Optics," or Fergusson's "Astronomy," as his companions, and go to sleep buried under his favourite authors. His first thoughts on rising were to obtain instruments for viewing those objects of which he had been reading." In the course of the year following William Herschel's appointment at Halifax, he obtained the more lucrative post of organist in the Octagon Chapel at Bath.

The parent nest in Hanover now rapidly emptied. Jacob, the eldest brother, followed William to England, and became first violin in the court orchestra—Alexander and Dietrich were the only two, with the exception of Caroline, who remained at home. Alexander obtained the somewhat mysterious post of Stadtmusicus of Hanover, his duties consisted in "blowing a corale from the Markt Thurm, and giving a daily lesson to an apprentice." The father of the family left the army in 1760, and settled down in the acknowledged position of the principal musical professor of the capital. He used to give concerts, in which his pupils performed, and even his little daughter, and his still smaller son, Dietrich, took part with their violins.

As time went on, Caroline became too useful as a household drudge to be allowed to participate much in the education which Isaac Herschel was eager to give to his sons. Her mother avowed the distinct opinion that book-lore was unfitted for a woman. For years, as she grew up to womanhood, her mind remained in a state of stagnation. She used bitterly to complain—and it is the only subject on which, in her memoirs, she shows any bitterness—that her mother's prejudices prevented