It is difficult to imagine how, among so many duties, so many distractions of various kinds, Herschel could continue so many studies, which already at Halifax had required in him so much resolution, so much perseverance, and a very uncommon degree of talent.  We have already seen that it was by music that Herschel was led to mathematics; mathematics in their turn led him to optics, the principal and fertile source of his illustrious career.  The hour finally struck, when his theoretic knowledge was to guide the young musician into a laborious application of principles quite foreign to his habits; and the brilliant success of which, as well as their excessive hardihood, will excite reasonable astonishment.

A telescope, a simple telescope, only two English feet in length, falls into the hands of Herschel during his residence at Bath.  This instrument, however imperfect, shows him a multitude of stars in the sky that the naked eye cannot discern; shows him also some of the known objects, but now under their true dimensions; reveals forms to him that the richest imaginations of antiquity had never suspected.  Herschel is transported with enthusiasm.  He will, without delay, have a similar instrument but of larger dimensions.  The answer from London is delayed for some days:  these few days appear as many centuries to him.  When the answer arrives, the price that the optician demands proves to be much beyond the pecuniary resources of a mere organist.  To any other man this would have been a clap of thunder.  This unexpected difficulty on the contrary, inspired Herschel with fresh energy; he cannot buy a telescope, then he will construct one with his own hands.  The musician of the Octagon Chapel rushes immediately into a multitude of experiments, on metallic alloys that reflect light with the greatest intensity, on the means of giving the parabolic figure to the mirrors, on the causes that in the operation of polishing affect the regularity of the figure, &c.  So rare a degree of perseverance at last receives its reward.  In 1774 Herschel has the happiness of being able to examine the heavens with a Newtonian telescope of five English feet focus, entirely made by himself.  This success tempts him to undertake still more difficult enterprises.  Other telescopes of seven, of eight, of ten, and even of twenty feet focal distance, crown his efforts.  As if to answer in advance those critics who would have accused him of a superfluity of apparatus, of unnecessary luxury, in the large size of the new instruments, and his extreme minutiae in their execution, Nature granted to the astronomical musician, on the 13th of March 1781, the unheard-of honour of commencing his career of observation with the discovery of a new planet, situated on the confines of our solar system.  Dating from that moment, Herschel’s reputation, no longer in his character of musician, but as a constructor of telescopes and as an astronomer, spread throughout the world.  The King, George III., a great lover