Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/71

Rh with great pleasure, I had the lamps lighted up which illuminated the picture of a Saturn (cut out in pasteboard) at the bottom of the garden wall. The effect was fine, and so natural that the best astronomer might have been deceived. Their royal highnesses and other ladies seemed to be much pleased with the artifice.

I remained in the Queen's apartment with the ladies till about half after ten, when in conversation with them I found them extremely well instructed in every subject that was introduced, and they seemed to be most amiable characters. To-morrow evening they hope to have better luck, and nothing will give me greater happiness than to be able to show them some of those beautiful objects with which the heavens are so gloriously ornamented.

"Sir William Watson returned to Bath after a fortnight or three weeks' stay. From him we heard that my brother was invited to Greenwich with the telescope, where he was met by a numerous party of astronomical and learned gentlemen, and trials of his instrument were made. In these letters he complained of being obliged to lead an idle life, having nothing to do but to pass between London and Greenwich. Sir William received many letters which he was so kind as to communicate to us. By these, and from those to Alexander or to me, we learned that the King wished to see the telescope at Windsor. At last a letter, dated July 2, arrived from Therese, and from this and several succeeding ones we gathered that the King would not suffer my brother to return to his profession again, and by his writing several times for a supply of money we could only suppose that he himself was in uncertainty about the time of his return. In the last week of July my brother came home, and immediately prepared for removing to Datchet, where he had taken a house with a garden and grass-plot annexed, quite