"Now to bring this sketch to a close. As the king had expressed a desire to see my telescope, I took it by his command to Greenwich, where it was compared with the instruments of my excellent friend, Dr. MASKELYNE, not only by himself, but by other experts, who pronounced it as their opinion that my instrument was superior to all the rest. Thereupon the king ordered that the instrument be brought to Windsor, and since it there met with marked approval, his majesty graciously awarded me a yearly pension, that I might be enabled to relinquish my profession of music, and devote my whole time to astronomy and the improvement of the telescope. Gratitude, as well as other considerations specified by me in a paper presented to the Royal Society, of which I am a member, has induced me to call the new planet _Georgium Sidus_.
"'Georgium Sidus.--jam nunc assuesce vocari.'--(_Virgil._)
We know but little of the family of HERSCHEL. The name is undoubtedly Jewish, and is found in Poland, Germany, and England. We learn that the ancestors of the present branch left Moravia about the beginning of the XVIIth century, on account of their change of religion to Protestantism. They became possessors of land in Saxony. HANS HERSCHEL, the great-grandfather of WILLIAM, was a brewer in Pirna (a small town near Dresden). Of the two sons of HANS, one, ABRAHAM (born in 1651, died 1718), was employed in the royal gardens at Dresden, and seems to have been a man of taste and skill in his calling. Of his eldest son, EUSEBIUS, there appears to be little trace in the records of the family. The second son, BENJAMIN, died in infancy; the third, ISAAC, was born in 1707 (Jan. 14), and was thus an orphan at eleven years of age. ISAAC was the father of the great astronomer.
He appears to have early had a passionate fondness for music, and this, added to a distaste for his father's calling, determined his career. He was taught music by an oboe-player in the royal band, and he also learned the violin. At the age of twenty-one he studied music for a year under the Cappelmeister PABRICH, at Potsdam, and in August, 1731, he became oboist in the band of the Guards, at Hanover. In August, 1732, he married ANNA ILSE MORITZEN. She appears to have been a careful and busy wife and mother, possessed of no special faculties which would lead us to attribute to her care any great part of the abilities of her son. She could not herself write the letters which she sent to her husband during his absences with his regiment. It was her firm belief that the separations and some of the sorrows of the family came from too much learning; and while she could not hinder the education of the sons of the family, she prevented their sisters from learning French and dancing. It is but just to say that the useful accomplishments of cooking, sewing, and the care of a household, were thoroughly taught by her to her two daughters. The father, ISAAC, appears to have been of a different mould, and to him, no doubt, the chief intellectual characteristics of the family are due. His position obliged him to be often absent from Hanover, with his regiment, but his hand appears to have been always present, smoothing over difficulties, and encouraging his sons to such learning and improvement as was to be had.