Page:Sir William Herschel, his life and works (1881).djvu/89

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of William Herschel.
67
year. Sir William Watson was the only one to whom the sum was mentioned, and he exclaimed, 'Never bought monarch honor so cheap!' To every other inquirer, my brother's answer was that the king had provided for him."

On the 1st of August, 1782, the family removed to Datchet. The last musical duty was performed on Whit-Sunday, 1782, in St. Margaret's Chapel, Bath, when the anthem for the day was of Herschel's own composition.

The end of the introductory epoch of his life is reached. Henceforth he lived in his observatory, and from his forty-fourth year onwards he only left it for short periods to go to London to submit his classic memoirs to the Royal Society. Even for these occasions he chose periods of moonlight, when no observations could be made.

He was a private man no longer. Henceforth he belongs to the whole world.