red his efforts he
ultimately succeeded in constructing the greatest telescope that the
world had up to that time ever seen. Though it is as an astronomer that
we are concerned with Herschel, yet we must observe even as a telescope
maker also great fame and no small degree of commercial success flowed
in upon him. When the world began to ring with his glorious discoveries,
and when it was known that he used no other telescopes than those which
were the work of his own hands, a demand sprang up for instruments of
his construction. It is stated that he made upwards of eighty large
telescopes, as well as many others of smaller size. Several of these
instruments were purchased by foreign princes and potentates.[29] We
have never heard that any of these illustrious personages became
celebrated astronomers, but, at all events, they seem to have paid
Herschel handsomely for his skill, so that by the sale of large
telescopes he was enabled to realise what may be regarded as a fortune
in the moderate horizon of the man of science.

Up to the middle of his life Herschel was unknown to the public except
as a laborious musician, with considerable renown in his profession, not
only in Bath, but throughout the West of England. His telescope-making
was merely the occupation of his spare moments, and was unheard of by
most of those who knew and respected his musical attainments. It was in
1774 that Herschel first enjoyed a view of the heavens through an
instrument built with his own hands. It was but a small one in
comparison with those which he afterwards fashioned, but at once he
experienced the advantage of being his own instrument maker. Night after
night he was able to add the improvements which experience suggested; at
one time he was enlarging the mirrors; at another he was reconstructing
the mounting, or trying to remedy defects in the eye-pieces. With
unwearying perseverance he aimed at the highest excellence, and with
each successive advance he found that he was able to pierce further into
the sky. His enthusiasm attracted a few friends who were, like himself,
ardently attached to science. The mode in which he first made the
acquaintance of Sir William Watson, who afterwards became his warmest
friend, was characteristic of both. Herschel was observing the mountains
in the moon, and as the hours passed on, he had occasion to bring his
telescope into the street in front of his house to enable him to
continue his work. Sir Willi