knowledge of "the handsome salary" was perhaps defective.
"Among the Bath visitors were many philosophical gentlemen, who used to frequent the levees at St. James's when in town. Colonel Walsh,[1] in particular, informed my brother that from a conversation he had had with His Majesty, it appeared that in the spring he was to come with his seven-foot telescope to the King. Similar reports he received from many others, but they made no great impression nor caused any interruption in his occupation or study," till "one morning in Passion Week, as Sir William Watson was with my brother, talking about the pending journey to town, my eldest nephew arrived to pay us a visit, and brought the confirmation that his uncle was expected with his instrument in town."[2] This nephew was George Griesbach, son of the elder daughter in the Herschel family, and a musician well known and favoured at Court. A chaise was at the door to take brother and sister to Bristol, ten miles away, for a forenoon rehearsal of the Messiah, which was to be performed in the evening. The conductor was too much absorbed in his nephew's news from Court to attend the rehearsal. Caroline was left to do it for him, and to fill "the music box with the necessary parts for between ninety and one hundred performers." This was how news of the endowment of research came from London to Bath. It was a reality, not a romance gilded with glory, like the news brought by an imaginary rider from Ghent to Aix. But the news, however
