William Herschel was born at Hanover, November 15, 1738. His father was a musician, and brought up his four sons to his own art, which in Germany gave him better means of educating his children, than would have fallen to the lot of a person holding the same station in England. The subject of our memoir is said to have had a master who instructed him in French, ethics, and metaphysics: but at the age of fourteen he was placed in the band of the Hanoverian regiment of guards, and in 1758 or 1759 he accompanied a detachment of the regiment to England. Another account states that he grew tired of his occupation, and came to England alone. Here, after struggling with poverty for some time, he was chosen by Lord Darlington to organize a band for the Durham militia; after which he passed several years in the West Riding of Yorkshire, employed in teaching music and studying languages. About 1765 he was elected organist at Halifax, and employed himself in the study of harmony and mathematics. Such at least is the statement of the ‘Obituary;’ but in that respectable work we find no references to the sources from which these minute particulars of Herschel’s early life are obtained. About this time he is said to have visited Italy; and, without professing to give credit to it, we may here insert a curious story which appears to have been copied into English works from the ‘Dictionnaire des Auteurs Vivans,’ &c., Paris, 1816. Being at Genoa, and not having wherewith to pay his passage home to England, he procured from a M. L’Anglé the use of some public rooms for a concert, at which he played a quartett, alone, upon a harp, and two horns, one fastened to each shoulder. Those who are in the least acquainted with wind instruments will hardly believe that a horn fastened to the shoulder would be of much more use than one growing out of the head, as a musical instrument; to say nothing of the difficulty of blowing two horns at once, or of playing a _quartett_ upon _three_ instruments. Remarkable characters are generally made the subject of wonderful stories, of which each is fashioned in accordance with the general habits of the inventor: the groom’s idea of a wit was “a gentleman who could ride three horses at once;” surely two horns and a harp are not too much to be played at once by a planetary discoverer. About 1766, he is said to have been one of the Pump-room band at Bath, and was shortly afterwards organist of the Octagon Chapel there. He taught and read as before; and here he turned his attention to astronomy. He borrowed a small reflecting telescope of a friend; and at length, finding that the purchase of such an instrument was (“fortunately,” as it has been well expressed,) above his means, he endeavoured to construct one for himself. His first attempt was a five-feet Newtonian reflector. It was some time before he perfected himself in the method of forming mirrors: in one instance he is said to have spoiled 200 before he succeeded.