prove a tax upon him, especially if he had been up all night watching the heavens. Still, it seemed a leaf taken out of the book of duties laid on Galileo by Cosmo de Medici, and promised to be both a relaxation and a pleasure. The same cannot be said of the other part of Herschel's commission. He was at liberty and he was encouraged to make reflecting telescopes for sale, as a means of adding to his income. An arrangement so unwise, from the shopkeeping look it wore, should not have been proposed or sanctioned. It was a source of profit to the astronomer; but it did not differ from allowing Herschel to set up a factory for the manufacture and sale of telescopes with the Royal arms over the door, and "By appointment Royal Astronomer to the King" painted underneath. No one who reads the language in which Buonaparte wrote to Laplace not many years after, can be surprised that, in view of this lowering of science, England should have been spoken of by him as a nation of shopkeepers. The King himself became Herschel's first customer, ordering from him four 10-feet reflectors, one of which was intended as a present to the University of Göttingen, which had been founded by his grandfather, George ii., forty-five years before, and was then rising into fame. These four reflectors cost six hundred and forty guineas apiece, and yielded a handsome profit.[1] Others, less costly, but still remunerative, were also ordered. Two hundred guineas
- ↑ This looks like the market price, if we may judge from Short's charges forty years before. "After Short had established himself in London in 1742 he received £630 for a 12-feet reflector from Lord Thomas Spencer. In 1752 he executed one for the King of Spain for £1200. The King of Denmark offered twelve hundred guineas" for
