devote himself to agriculture,
that he determined on being a musician, and settled at Hanover.

Jacob Herschel, father of William, the astronomer, was an eminent
musician; nor was he less remarkable for the good qualities of his heart
and of his mind. His very limited means did not enable him to bestow a
complete education on his family, consisting of six boys and four girls.
But at least, by his care, his ten children all became excellent
musicians. The eldest, Jacob, even acquired a rare degree of ability,
which procured for him the appointment of Master of the Band in a
Hanoverian regiment, which he accompanied to England. The third son,
William, remained under his father's roof. Without neglecting the fine
arts, he took lessons in the French language, and devoted himself to the
study of metaphysics, for which he retained a taste to his latest day.

In 1759, William Herschel, then about twenty-one years old, went over to
England, not with his father, as has been erroneously published, but
with his brother Jacob, whose connections in that country seemed likely
to favour the young man's opening prospects in life. Still, neither
London nor the country towns afforded him any resource in the beginning,
and the first two or three years after his expatriation were marked by
some cruel privations, which, however, were nobly endured. A fortunate
chance finally raised the poor Hanoverian to a better position; Lord
Durham engaged him as Master of the Band in an English regiment which
was quartered on the borders of Scotland. From this moment the musician
Herschel acquired a reputation that spread gradually, and in the year
1765 he was appointed organist at Halifax (Yorkshire). The emoluments of
this situation, together with giving private lessons both in the town
and the country around, procured a degree of comfort for the young
William. He availed himself of it to remedy, or rather to complete, his
early education. It was then that he learnt Latin and Italian, though
without any other help than a grammar and a dictionary. It was then also
that he taught himself something of Greek. So great was the desire for
knowledge with which he was inspired while residing at Halifax, that
Herschel found means to continue his hard philological exercises, and at
the same time to study deeply the learned but very obscure mathematical
work on the theory of music by R. Smith. This treatise, either
explicitly or implicitly, supposed the reader