and which, after all, proved of no use to me afterwards, except what little I knew of music, being just able to play the second violin of an overture or easy quartette, which my father took a pleasure in teaching me. N.B.—When my mother was not at home. Amen."[1]
The family, though poorly provided with worldly goods, was richly endowed with mental gifts, which had only to be well laid out to lead to wealth and fortune. The father, Isaac Herschel, came of a sturdy Protestant stock, which, about a century before his birth on January 14, 1707, escaped persecution in Moravia by emigrating to Saxony. Isaac's father was there employed in the Royal gardens at Dresden, and earned a name for himself as a skilful landscape gardener. A passionate love of music, however, compelled the son to forsake his father's business of gardening, and betake him to his favourite study under a hautboy player in the Royal band. After pursuing the study at Berlin and Potsdam, he journeyed in 1731 to Hanover, where he became a hautboy player in the band of the Elector's Guards, and where he married in the year following. George II. was then Elector of Hanover. To that connection with Britain was sometimes due our entanglement in the politics and wars of the Continent, and the bringing across of Hanoverian soldiers, perhaps of Hessians also, to defend this country when threatened with invasion by France. War brought its troubles to the Herschel family. From these troubles arose singular compensations for the advancement of science, the honour of the family, and the welfare of mankind. On the
