In the last week of July my brother came home, and immediately prepared for removing to Datchet, where he had taken a house with a garden and grass-plot annexed, quite suitable for the purpose of an observing-place. Sir Wm. Watson spent nearly the whole time at our house, and he was not the only friend who truly grieved at my brother’s going from Bath; or feared his having perhaps agreed to no very advantageous offers; their fears were, in fact, not without reason.... The prospect of entering again on the toils of teaching, &c., which awaited my brother at home (the months of leisure being now almost gone by), appeared to him an intolerable waste of time, and by way of alternative he chose to be Royal Astronomer, with a salary of £200 a year. Sir William Watson was the only one to whom the sum was mentioned, and he exclaimed, “Never bought monarch honour so cheap!” To every other inquirer, my brother’s answer was that the King had provided for him. [Sidenote: 1782. _Removal to Datchet._] Everything was immediately packed for the removal, and on the 1st of August, when the brothers and sister walked over to Datchet from Slough (where the coach passed), they found the waggon, with its precious load of instruments, as well as household furniture, waiting to be unpacked. The new home was a large neglected place, the house in a deplorably ruinous condition, the garden and grounds overgrown with weeds. For a fortnight they had no female servant at all; an old woman, the gardener’s wife, showed Miss Herschel the shops, where the prices of everything, from coals to butcher’s meat, appalled her. But these considerations weighed for nothing in her brother’s eyes against the delight of stables where mirrors could be ground, a roomy laundry, which was to serve for a library, with one door opening on a large grass-plot, where “the small twenty-foot” was to be erected; he gaily assured her that they could live on eggs and bacon, which would cost nothing to speak of now that they were really in the country! The beginning of October, Alexander was obliged to return to Bath. The separation was truly painful to us all, and I was particularly affected by it, for till now I had not had time to consider the consequence of giving up the prospect of making myself independent by becoming (with a little more uninterrupted application) a useful member of the musical profession. But besides that my brother William would have been very much at a loss for my assistance, I had not spirit enough to throw myself on the public after losing his protection. Poor Alexander! we had hoped at first to persuade him to change Bath for London, where he had the offer of the most profitable engagements, and we should then have had him near us ... but he refused, and before we saw him again the next year he was married.