with permission to make and sell telescopes for his own behoof, and with the requirement that he should act as "showman of the heavens" to princes and princesses, it was neither an uncommon nor an ungenerous act in the world of science. It is presented to us in the gossip of the day as lacking in generosity, and reflecting small credit on the King and his advisers. The salary of Dr. Maskelyne, then Astronomer-Royal, and the head of the most famous observatory in Europe, a man of high standing to boot, and of worldwide scientific attainment, was only £300, to the discredit of the nation, not of the King. Besides, the Civil List from which, presumably, the pension was paid, was then in a transition and probably a crippled state. Two years before, Mr. Dunning moved in the Commons, and, after a feeble resistance, carried, "That it was competent to the House, whenever they thought proper, to examine into and correct abuses in the expenditure of the Civil List revenues." The Court required to be on its guard, as, in the very year the pension was granted to Herschel, the King sent a message to the Commons, "requesting a discharge of arrears of Civil List, amounting to nearly £296,000; the House voted the requisite sum."[1]
The endowment of research was far from being a new thing in Europe. It had been the work of princes; it was now becoming the work of parliaments and people. James i. when, in defiance of the witches of Scotland and Denmark, he crossed the North Sea to
- ↑ Adolphus, History, iii. 119, 372 (1780, 1782). By the Parliamentary regulations passed in 1782 "no pension was to exceed £300 a year" (15th April) (Cassell's History, iv. 290-91). In 1783 arrears were again accumulating (Cassell, iv. 301).
