letters from Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society. Herschel was rapidly outgrowing his surroundings. The dullest eye could see that something had to be done for the honour of the country. Herschel, though resident in England, was not an Englishman; but he was a subject of the King of England as Elector of Hanover, and the nation that reaped the honour, it might soon come to be the profit, of his discoveries, was bound to mark its sense of the value it set upon his presence within its borders. The Royal Society did what they could, but it was far from enough. As they honoured Benjamin Franklin with the Copley Medal in 1753 for "curious experiments and observations on electricity," so they showed their high regard for William Herschel by awarding the same medal to him in November 1781 for his "discovery of a new and singular star." On December 6 of that year he was also elected a Fellow of the Society. But these honours did not meet the case. They were prizes won in the race for fame; they did not provide a living or leisure for further triumphs. But the King personally was bound to interpose. He had a name throughout Europe for love of science, and especially of astronomy, which no other monarch enjoyed. A great French writer described him, long before Herschel appeared above the horizon, as "véritablement amateur de la Physique et de l'Astronomie." For years he had supported an observatory and a King's Astronomer at Richmond. Parliament had provided ample funds in the form of a Civil List, of which at that time it got no account. But the funds were squandered or spent with such a lavish hand that enormous arrears remained unpaid. Apparently the King was helpless.
