for the Royal Astronomer. Chief among them was the Mæcenas of science in those days, Sir Joseph Banks, the companion of Cook, and the President of the Royal Society. Owing to his representations, the King allowed his astronomer £2000 for the construction of the telescope, and afterwards £2000 more to complete it, with £200 a year for necessary repairs, painting, ropes, etc., and men's wages, and £50 a year of pension for Caroline. When Caroline Herschel records these handsome allowances from the King, she expresses no thankfulness, though her own personal expenses for seven years previous had not amounted to more than £8 a year! But she had cause to complain. "I never felt satisfied," she writes in 1827, "with the support your father received towards his undertakings, and far less with the ungracious manner in which it was granted. For the last sum came with a message that more must never be asked for." One of the requests was a small salary for her as assistant to her brother. The sum granted was £50 a year. For nine quarters it was left unpaid! It is perhaps matter of regret that she wrote as she did of the shabbiness of the pension allowed to her brother. She did the King a grave injustice. And she forgot, besides, that while the King paid £4000 for the telescope,[1] and allowed £200 a year for upkeep and wages, the instrument remained her brother's private property. William Herschel shows no trace of the grumbling, cynical spirit of his sister. He knew how handsomely he had been treated. At the same time there is a most amusing raciness about her view
- ↑ Letter from Sir John Herschel, March 13, 1847: Weld's History of the Royal Society, ii. 193,
