Page:Sir William Herschel, his life and works (1881).djvu/88

66 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 received many letters, which he was so kind as to communicate to us. By these, and from those to or to me, we learned that the king wished to see the telescope at Windsor. At last a letter, dated July 2, arrived from, 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-plat annexed, quite suitable for the purpose of an observing-place. Sir spent nearly the whole time at our house, and he was not the only friend who truly grieved at my brother's going from Bath; or feared his having perhaps agreed to no very advantageous offers; their fears were, in fact, not without reason.... The prospect of entering again on the toils of teaching, etc., which awaited my brother at home (the months of leisure being now almost gone by), appeared to him an intolerable waste of time, and by way of alternative he chose to be royal astronomer, with a salary of £200 a