and were very anxious to "remove" him from
the service. That, however, was by no means an easy matter for them to
accomplish. They had no money to buy his discharge, and so, not to
call the transaction by any other than its true name, William Herschel
was forced to run away from the army. We must not judge too harshly of
this desertion, for the times were hard, and the lives of men in
Herschel's position were valued at very little by the constituted
authorities. Long after, it is said, when Herschel had distinguished
himself by the discovery of the planet Uranus, a pardon for this high
military offence was duly handed to him by the king in person on the
occasion of his first presentation. George III. was not a particularly
wise or brilliant man; but even he had sense enough to perceive that
William Herschel could serve the country far better by mapping out the
stars of heaven than by playing the oboe to the royal regiment of
Hanoverian Guards.

William was nineteen when he ran away. His good mother packed his
boxes for him with such necessaries as she could manage, and sent them
after him to Hamburg; but, to the boy's intense disgust, she forgot to
send the copy of "Locke on the Human Understanding." What a sturdy
deserter we have here, to be sure! "She, dear woman," he says
plaintively, "knew no other wants than good linen and clothing!" So
William Herschel the oboe-player started off alone to earn his living
as best he might in the great world of England. It is strange he
should have chosen that, of all European countries; for there alone he
was liable to be arrested as a deserter: but perhaps his twelvemonth's
stay in London may have given him a sense of being at home amongst us
which he would have lacked in any other part of Europe. At any rate,
hither he came, and for the next three years picked up a livelihood, we
know not how, as many other excellent German bandsmen have done before
and since him. Our information about his early life is very meagre,
and at this period we lose sight of him for a while altogether.

About the year 1760, however, we catch another incidental glimpse of
the young musician in his adopted country. By that time, he had found
himself once more a regular post as oboist to the Durham militia, then
quartered for its muster at Pontefract. A certain Dr. Miller, an
organist at Doncaster, was dining one evening at the officers' mess;
when his host happened to speak to him in high p