couraged Herschel to apply for the organist's place in Halifax. But Miss Herschel in 1822 speaks of "Mr. Bulman from Leeds, the grandson of my brother's earliest acquaintance in this country,"[1] and tells us that in 1764 he paid them in Hanover a fortnight's visit from "Leeds in Yorkshire (where he must be left for some time)." The organist's place at Halifax does not date from 1760, but from 1765. The inconsistencies between Southey's story and Caroline Herschel's are too serious to allow us to accept his version of the means by which the organist's place at Halifax was gained in or about 1760 as true of "Herschel the astronomer." It is known that his brother Jacob was in England for two years about 1759.
While resident in Halifax, Herschel appears to have paid a visit to Italy, the ancient land of poetry and astronomy. Our authority for this is Niemeyer, Chancellor of the University of Halle, who visited Herschel at Slough shortly before his death, and seems to have received the details of the journey from his own lips. When he reached Genoa on his way home, he found himself short of money to meet expenses. He had gone to Italy to "improve himself in his profession of music"; and he put his improvement to use "by an original kind of concert he gave in that town, in which he played on the harp and on two horns fastened on his shoulders at the same time." He procured the money he needed, and, had he not been proud of his youthful success as a musician, would not have told the story, fifty years after, to his learned and distinguished visitor, as either he or his sister Caroline must have done. Her Memoirs contain no information on
- ↑ Memoirs, pp. 137, 326.
