considering their father's doubtful position, it may seem at
first sight rather a stretch of language to describe him as a working
man at all. Nevertheless, when one remembers the humble grade of
military bandsmen in Germany, even at the present day, and the fact
that most of the Herschel family remained in that grade during all
their lives, it is clear that William Herschel's life may be fairly
included within the scope of the present series. "In my fifteenth
year," he says himself, "I enlisted in military service," and he
evidently looked upon his enlistment in exactly the same light as that
of any ordinary soldier.

England and Hanover were, of course, very closely connected together at
the middle of the last century. The king moved about a great deal from
one country to the other; and in 1755 the regiment of Hanoverian Guards
was ordered on service to England for a year. William Herschel, then
seventeen years of age, and already a member of the band, went together
with his father; and it was in this modest capacity that he first made
acquaintance with the land where he was afterwards to attain the
dignity of knighthood and the post of the king's astronomer. He played
the oboe, like his father before him, and no doubt underwent the usual
severe military discipline of that age of stiff stocks and stern
punishments. His pay was very scanty, and out of it he only saved
enough to carry home one memento of his English experiences. That
memento was in itself a sufficient mark of the stuff from which young
Herschel was compounded. It was a copy of "Locke on the Human
Understanding." Now, Locke's famous work, oftener named than read, is a
very tough and serious bit of philosophical exposition; and a boy of
seventeen who buys such a book out of his meagre earnings as a military
bandsman is pretty sure not to end his life within the four dismal bare
walls of the barrack. It is indeed a curious picture to imagine young
William Herschel, among a group of rough and boisterous German
soldiers, discussing high mathematical problems with his father, or
sitting down quietly in a corner to read "Locke on the Human
Understanding."

In 1757, during the Seven Years' War, Herschel was sent with his
regiment to serve in the campaign of Rossbach against the French. He
was not physically strong, and the hardships of active service told
terribly upon the still growing lad. His parents were alarmed at his
appearance when he returned,