CHAPTER V.

RETROSPECTION.

AS we close the record of Miss Herschel’s residence in England, we may pause for a moment to look back over the space she had traversed while following, with unvarying diligence and humility, the path her brother marked out for her, first in blessed hourly companionship, when she was as necessary in his home as in his library, or among his instruments; and latterly, when with saddened heart but unflagging determination she continued to work for him, but saw his domestic happiness pass into other keeping.

[Sidenote: 1822. _Retrospection._]

While they toiled together through those first ten years of ever-deepening interest and marvellous activity, during which the rapid juxtaposition of mirror-grinding, concerts, oratorios, music lessons,[30] and frequent papers written for philosophical societies, almost takes the breath away as we read,—the brother had abundant opportunity of learning how far he could trust to his companion’s readiness, as well as capability, to accept of duties as utterly remote from all that her previous life had prepared her for as if he had asked her to accompany him on a pilgrimage to Mecca. And thus, of all of whom he had made trial, it was not the brilliant Jacob, nor the gifted Alexander, but the little quiet, home-bred Caroline, of whom nothing had been expected but to be up early and to do the work of the house, and to devote her leisure to knitting and sewing, in whom he found that _steady devotion to a fixed purpose_ which he felt it was possible to link with his own. “I did nothing for my brother,” she said, “but what a well-trained puppy-dog would have done: that is to say, I did what he commanded me. I was a mere tool which _he_ had the trouble of sharpening.” Such was always her own modest self-estimate. It is hardly too much to say that, to have worked as she had worked, and to have done all that she had accomplished, and to claim no more than the credit due to passive obedience to orders, is a depth of humility of that rare and noble kind which is in itself a form of greatness. It must not be forgotten, that the progress of astronomical science since Sir William Herschel’s great reflector startled the world, has not been greater than has been the change, both in opinion and practice, on the subject of female employments and education. The appointment of a young woman as an assistant astronomer, with a regular salary for her services, was an unprecedented occurrence in England. She had watched and shared in every effort and every failure from the first seven-foot telescope to the construction of the ponderous machinery that was to support the mighty tube of which she herself made the first crude model in pasteboard. When, finally, her brother was summoned to the King, and wrote to tell her how he fared at Court, she accepted the decision, by which he exchanged a handsome income for the sake of obtaining the command of his own time, and £200 a-year from his gracious sovereign, with only a passing expression of regret from the housekeeper’s point of view, and threw herself heart and soul into the new life at Datchet. One all-sufficing reward sweetened her labours—“I had the comfort to see that my brother was satisfied with my endeavours in assisting him.” When the dignity of original discovery gave her a distinct and separate claim to the respect of the astronomical world, she must have found out that she was something better than a mere tool. The requisite knowledge of algebra and mathematical formulæ for calculations and reductions she had to gather when and how she could: chiefly at meals, and at any odd moments when her brother could be asked questions, and the answers were carefully entered in her Commonplace Book, where examples of taking equal altitudes, and how to convert sidereal time into mean time, follow upon pages of problems, oblique plain triangles, right-angled spherical triangles, how to find the logarithm of a number given, and theorems for making tables of motion. With this slender store of attainment she accomplished a vast amount of valuable work, besides the regular duties of assistant to so indefatigable an observer as Sir William Herschel. He was invariably accustomed to carry on his telescopic observations till daybreak, circumstances permitting, without any regard to season; it was the business of his assistant to note the clocks and to write down the observations from his dictation as they were made. Subsequently she assisted in the laborious numerical calculations and reductions, so that it was only during his absences from home, or when any other interruption of his regular course of observation occurred, that she was able to devote herself to the Newtonian sweeper, which she used to such good purpose. Besides the eight comets discovered by her, she detected several remarkable nebulæ and clusters of stars previously unnoticed, especially the superb nebula known as No. 1, Class V., in Sir William Herschel’s Catalogue. Long practice taught her to make light of her work. “An observer at your twenty-foot when sweeping,” she wrote many years after, “wants nothing but a being who _can_ and _will_ execute his commands with the quickness of lightning; for you will have seen that in many sweeps six or twice six objects have been secured and described in one minute of time.”

The ten years from 1788 to 1798, although a blank as regards her personal history—the Recollections cease with her brother’s marriage—were among the busiest of her life, and in the year last mentioned the Royal Society published two of her works, namely, “A Catalogue of 860 Stars observed by Flamsteed, but not included in the British Catalogue,” and “A General Index of Reference to every Observation of every Star in the above-mentioned British Catalogue.” It is in reference to these that she wrote the very interesting letter to the Astronomer Royal, which is given among others, in its place, in the Journal. But another work, which was not published, was the most valuable, as it was the most laborious of all her undertakings. This was “The Reduction and Arrangement in the form of a Catalogue, in Zones, of all the Star-clusters and Nebulæ observed by Sir W. Herschel in his Sweeps.” It supplied the needful data for Sir John Herschel when he undertook the review of the nebulæ of the northern hemisphere; and it was for this that the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society was voted to her in 1828, followed by the extraordinary distinction of an Honorary Membership. This Catalogue was not completed until after her return to Hanover, and Sir David Brewster wrote of it as “a work of immense labour,” and “an extraordinary monument of the unextinguished ardour of a lady of seventy-five in the cause of abstract science.”

[Sidenote: _Her Sweepings._]

Although the Recollections cease in 1788, there are some volumes recording the nature and results of her nightly “sweepings,” which Miss Herschel kept very regularly, and, as an unique example of a lady’s journal, a few of the entries may be of interest.

1788. _Sept. 9th._—My brother showed me the five satellites of Saturn. He made me take notice of a star, which made a double star last night with the fifth satellite.

* * * * *

_Dec. 8th._—I swept for a comet which was announced in the papers as having been discovered the 26th of November by Mr. Messier. According to the observations of that date, it should have been within a few degrees of the Pole star (by my brother’s calculation), but though I swept with great attention a space of at least ten or twelve degrees all around the pole over repeatedly, I could find nothing.

Another night of unavailing search, with thermometer 20°.[31]

1790. _Jan. 7th._—I have swept all this evening for my [third] comet in vain. My brother showed me the G. Sidus in the twenty-foot telescope, and I saw both its satellites very plainly.

1791. _Aug. 2nd._—I began to sweep at 1.30, from the horizon through the Pleiades up as high as the head of Medusa. Left off with β Tauri. Afterwards I continued with horizontal sweeps till daylight was too strong for seeing any longer.

1792. _May 3rd._—My brother having desired me by way of practice to settle the stars α Persei and Castor, and α Virginis, by some neighbouring stars in Wollaston’s Catalogue, I made last night an attempt to take their places. The moon was near the full, therefore no sweeping could be done.

1795. _May 1st._—_Mem._ In the future when any great chasms appear in my journals, it may be understood that sweeping for comets has not been neglected at every opportunity which did offer itself. But as I always do sweep according to the precept my brother has given me, and as I often am in want of time, I think it is very immaterial if the places where I have seen nothing are noted down.

_Nov. 7th._—0.40 sidereal time. About an hour ago I saw the comet [seventh] which is marked in the annexed field of view [diagrams drawn with extreme neatness illustrate the entries when necessary]. When I perceived it first the two small stars were entirely covered by it, and it appeared to be a cluster of stars mixed with nebulosity; but not knowing of such an object in that place, I kept watching it, and perceived it to be a comet by its having moved from the two small stars, so as to leave them entirely free from haziness.

1797. _Aug. 14th._—C. H.’s comet. At 9.30 common time, being dark enough for sweeping, I began in the usual manner with looking over the heavens with the naked eye, and immediately saw a comet nearly as bright as that which was discovered by Mr. Gregory, January 8, 1793. I went down from the observatory to call my brother Alexander, that he might assist me at the clock. In my way into the garden I was met and detained by Lord S. and another gentleman, who came to see my brother and his telescopes. By way of preventing too long an interruption, I told the gentlemen that I had just found a comet, and wanted to settle its place. I pointed it out to them, and after having seen it they took their leave.

[Sidenote: 1822. _Retrospection._]

These entries were continued with great regularity to the year 1819, at which time, as the Diary shows, Sir William’s increasing feebleness made her close daily attendance more necessary, and her pen was in greater request than the “sweeper.” The last volume concludes with a carefully drawn eye-draft of the situation of a comet visible at Hanover, January 31st, 1824. Thenceforth the instrument which had done such good service in her hands for forty years of steady work, became the chief ornament of her sitting-room, until her disquieting fears for its ultimate fate led her to send it back to England.

Sad as is the story of those last years of declining old age, while the beloved brother lived we know that his sister’s life was full of occupation. It is not until the cruel hour comes, and she knows that death and the grave will soon claim him, that she allows the sense of her own bitter desolation to find expression. When all was over, her only desire seems to have been to hurry away. Hardly was he laid in his grave than she collected the few things she cared to keep, and left for ever the country where she had spent fifty years of her life, living and toiling for him and him only. “If I should leave off making memorandums of such events as affect, or are interesting to me, I should feel like—what I am, namely, a person that has nothing more to do in this world.” Mournful words: doubly mournful when we know that the writer had nearly half an ordinary lifetime still between her and that grave which she made haste to prepare, in the hope that her course was nearly run. Who can think of her, at the age of seventy-two, heart-broken and desolate, going back to the home of her youth in the fond expectation of finding consolation, without a pang of sympathetic pity? She found everything changed. In addition to those changes, for which she might have been in some measure prepared, there were others of a kind to admit of neither cure nor alleviation. The life she had led for fifty years had removed her, she little guessed how much, from the old familiar paths: her thoughts, her habits, all her ideas had been formed and moulded in a totally different world: more bitter still, she found herself alone in her great sorrow and quenchless love; pride in the distinction reflected on themselves from relationship to the illustrious astronomer was a miserable substitute for the reverential affection she had looked to find for one of the kindest and most generous of brothers. But the bitterest suffering of all was from a source which was, and ever remained, beyond the reach of help. “You don’t know,” wrote one of Miss Edgeworth’s sisters, “the blank of life after having lived within the radiance of genius;” and this was the blank in which Miss Herschel doomed herself not only to live, but to try to begin anew, when past three score and ten. The extracts from her letters bear strong testimony to the gallant struggle she made to find interests and occupations in what those about her, as well as she herself, looked upon as a kind of exile, and “Why did I leave happy England?” was often her cry, more especially as time went on, and interest in her nephew and his family came mercifully to fill the heart still so yearning and ready for affection. When she heard the news of Sir John Herschel’s intended departure for the Cape, she wrote, “Ja! if I was thirty or forty years junger and could go too? in Gottes nahmen!” her interest in the science to which she had devoted her best years never ceased, though she persisted to the end in ridiculing the bare suggestion that the Rosse telescope could by any possibility be so good as _the_ forty-foot. The homage paid to her as a _savante_ amused as well as gratified her. “You must give me leave to send you any publication you can think of,” she wrote to her nephew, “without mentioning anything about paying for them. For it is necessary I should every now and then lay out a little of my spare cash in that for the sake of supporting the reputation of being a learned lady (there is for you!), for I am not only looked at for such a one, but even stared at here in Hanover!” Her deprecation of the membership of the Irish Academy, conferred on one who for so many years had “_not even discovered a comet_,” was thoroughly sincere as well as characteristic, but she found pleasure in receiving the homage which was naturally paid to her; no man of any scientific eminence passed through Hanover without visiting her; from the Royal Family she received the most kind and graceful attentions; and it became a matter of public concern to note the presence of the well-known tiny figure at the Theatre, where her constant appearance in extreme old age was in itself a marvel. The frugal simplicity of her habits made it a positive perplexity to dispose of her income; she protested that £50 a-year was all she could manage to spend on herself, and she pertinaciously resisted receiving the pension of £100 per annum left to her by her brother, often devoting the quarterly or half-yearly payment to the purchase of some handsome present for her nephew or niece. She wrote full instructions and made the most careful arrangements for every detail of business in connection with her own burial and the disposal of her property—that is of the little she reserved, for her generosity towards her relations was as great as the expenditure on herself was small.

In these last remarks I have anticipated events, and must now return to the year 1822, when the correspondence begins.

[Sidenote: 1822. _Journey to Hanover._]

FROM MISS HERSCHEL TO LADY HERSCHEL.

ROTTERDAM, _Monday, Oct. 21, 1822_.

DEAR LADY HERSCHEL,—

At this present moment I have nothing to wish for, besides the means of convincing myself by one look of your and my dear nephew’s health. After a very troublesome passage of forty-eight hours, we find ourselves almost restored to our former condition and composure, with only the difference that we have no more hunting after our trunks from Custom-house to Custom-house, and can proceed on our way to Hanover in peace after one night’s rest here in a very good inn. But the last night was truly dismal, for the sailors themselves confessed that it was what is called a high sea. At one time a spray conveyed a bucket-full of water into my bed, which was regarded as nothing in comparison to the evils with which I was surrounded. I was the most sick of all on board, and the poor old lady was pitied by all who enquired after her, but I had four ladies in the same cabin with me, who encouraged me to hold out, which at one time I thought would have been impossible. Something happened to the vessel for want of a good pilot in the Thames, and at Blackwall we laid still three hours, then we hobbled on to near Gravesend, and there lay in a high sea at anchor all night, whilst they were hatching and thumping to mend the vessel we were to go in. In consequence of this, we could not reach the spot where a pilot could meet us time enough on Sunday evening, and lay again at anchor. At half past eleven I set foot on shore, where so many people were assembled to gaze on us that it set me a crying, and now I am glad to be shut up once more in a room by myself and where I can make proper preparations for travelling further, which hitherto I have not had the opportunity of doing. All my clothes which I had prepared for the ship or sleeping on the road were locked up at the Custom-house, and I could not get hold of them again till we entered this house. So much for our adventures at present, and I beg and hope you will soon and often let us know how you are with my nephew, and how and where you can pass the following winter months in the most comfortable way.

My brother is gone into the street to look about him. The weather is fine, and I wish my dear nephew was with him, for it looks very tempting and new all about me, and I think he would enjoy seeing the bustle on the water with which this house is surrounded. My brother has charged me with millions of compliments and thanks to yourself and our nephew, but I cannot afford him quite so many, as else there would be no room for all those I owe to my dear Lady H. and my nephew, who took last Friday so long a walk to see us once more. My fears for what was to come and regret for what I left behind were so stupifying that it made me almost insensible to all what was passing about me, only this I shall remember, with satisfaction, that his looks were better than I have seen for a long time past.

I am now going to direct the little parcel for Professor Swinden, and likewise to Mr. Crommelin, jun., and to Professor Moll, at Utrecht, and Gauss will not be forgotten as we go along.

I beg you will remember me to Miss Baldwin (who I hope is with you), and particularly to Mr. Beckwith, whom I shall never be able to thank sufficiently for the friendly care he has shown to me on all, and especially on the last occasion of helping me on with my packages.

Farewell, my dear Lady Herschel, and let me hear soon that you and my nephew are well.

Miss Baldwin will write, and of course she will inform me of her own and all friends’ health, &c.

Ever your affectionate CAR. HERSCHEL.

[Sidenote: 1822. _Arrival in Hanover._]

FROM MISS HERSCHEL TO LADY HERSCHEL.

HANOVER, _Oct. 30, 1822_.

MY DEAR LADY HERSCHEL,—

We arrived here at noon, on the 28th, without the least accident, but not without the utmost exertion and extreme fatigue to both my brother and myself, from which it will be some time before I shall get the better, on account of the many visits of our friends, who come to convince themselves of our safe arrival, of which I hope you will have been informed long before this can reach you, as Mr. Quintain has promised me to send you a line the moment he reaches London. He left Hanover yesterday. I had wrote a letter in hopes he would have taken it, but that was impossible, and the post from here has been changed from Tuesday to Monday.

Mr. Hausmann called also here yesterday, and you may easily imagine that many inquiries are made after you and my dear nephew by all those who come near me, and I hope you will soon enable me, by a few lines, to inform them of your welfare and health, and give me the comfort to know that you have regained some of your former composure, after the late melancholy change and unsettled state in which we all were involved.

I found Mrs. H. in personal appearance so different from what I had imagined, that I can hardly believe her to be the same; she is just sixty-three years of age, and suffers much from rheumatism, which has taken away partially the use of her hands, but she is still of so cheerful a disposition and so active by way of overcoming disease by exercise, that I cannot wonder enough, and her reception of me was truly gratifying; the handsomest rooms, three or four times larger than what I have been used to, from which I can step in her own apartments, have been prepared for me and furnished in the most elegant style. But I cannot say that I feel well enough to enjoy all these good things nor be able to show myself to those who wish to see me, at least not at present.

Mrs. Beckedorff sent to enquire after me when I had been hardly two hours arrived. Miss B. is confined with a severe cold. My brother went yesterday to see them, and we have postponed our meeting till Saturday, when she will come to town for the winter.

From Rotterdam I sent a letter which I hope you have received, and by which you will have seen that our passage was not of the most agreeable kind.

The papers to Professor Van Swinden, Crommelin jun., at Amsterdam, and Professor Moll, at Utrecht, have been delivered, but that to Gauss, I am sorry to say, is either lost or mislaid, for I cannot find it anywhere, and I am vexed to give my dear nephew so bad a sample of my willingness to be of use to him. Perhaps through Mr. Quintain he might get one over when the Duke of Cambridge returns, else the next conveyance I know of is at Christmas, by Goltermann.

I beg my love to my nephew and Miss Baldwin, who, I hope, will soon let me know how you are, &c.

Believe me, Your truly and affectionate CAR. HERSCHEL.

[Sidenote: 1822. _Life in Hanover._]

FROM MISS HERSCHEL TO LADY HERSCHEL.

HANOVER, _Nov. 12, 1822_.

MY DEAR LADY HERSCHEL,—

I hope you have received the letter which I sent by the first post which went from here after my arrival, dated 31st October, and also one I wrote in Rotterdam, by which you will have seen what a disagreeable passage we had at sea, but all those frights and fears, and the troubles and fatigues of the journey we afterwards experienced by land appear now to have been nothing but a dream, and my waking thoughts are for ever wandering back to the scenes of sorrows which embittered the afflicting and final parting from my revered brother. If I could but be assured that you and my dear nephew at this present moment were in tolerable health and otherwise exempted from vexation, I should feel myself much more comfortable, but it is hard to live for months without knowing what may have happened to those with whom one has been for so many years immediately connected and in the habit of keeping up a daily intercourse.

I have hitherto not been able to overcome a dislike to going abroad, and what little I have seen of Hanover (in my way to the families of my two nieces and Mrs. Beckedorff, who live all close by) I do not like! And though some streets have been enlarged (as I am told), they appear to me much less than I left them fifty years ago. But a total seclusion from society will not do for a continuance, for I will not be ungrateful, I must call on the Delmerings, &c.,—who have been here. Mrs. D. is grown quite fat and very handsome, her daughter is a head taller and a very pretty young woman; the eldest son is already in the service with the Erz Herzog of Strelitz, and there has been no increase in the family since they left England. Mrs. D. made many inquiries after you and my nephew’s health, and gratefully remembers the kindly treatment she received at all times from you.

_Nov. 18th._—Mrs. Beckedorff and Miss B. and myself have been laid up with severe colds, and I am still unable to go into company, but Mrs. B. sent Dr. Mühry to make her excuse for not returning my visit. The first time I went to them, Mrs. B. made all her ten grandchildren stand up before me according to their ages, and a fine healthy family it is. But all the little folks I am introduced to are disappointed at finding me to be only a _little_ old woman; which I suppose must be owing to having been told the _Great_ Aunt Caroline from England was coming.

From the family of my eldest niece I have seen nothing as yet, and probably shall not before next summer, as her affairs must remain for some time in an unsettled state. I did not know till we were within sight of Hanover how greatly I was obliged to my brother for coming to fetch me, for I find he was but barely recovered from a serious illness when he left home, which had been occasioned by travelling to and fro to his daughter, who was in need of the support of both her parents on losing her husband after a few days’ illness; in the same week she had given birth to a son, and was made a widow with nine children in her 38th year. But, happily, she is blessed with an uncommon share of understanding and fortitude, besides the means of seeing them well educated and improving their fortunes.

_Nov. 27th._—You will see, my dear Lady H., by the above, that at different times I have been employed in giving a circumstantial account of all what concerns that part of my family amongst whom I came to end my days; but I would not conclude, nor send off my letter, till I should have received some satisfactory account of your well-being, and the arrival of the last post has given a most agreeable turn to the dismal impression the parting scenes of the 17th and 18th October had left on my mind. To Miss Baldwin I feel greatly obliged for her comforting letter, and hope she will be able to write me many more equally consoling; my brother is going to speak for himself, and if I would leave a little room for a few words to my nephew, I must conclude with saying that I am

My dear Lady Herschel’s Most obliged and affectionate, CAR. HERSCHEL.

[Sidenote: 1822. _Settled in Hanover._]

MY DEAR NEPHEW,—I thank you for the few lines in the P.S., for by them I see you were thinking of me when you procured some indexes to Flamsteed’s obs. But I will not trouble you to send any; I only wished you to have some for your own friends, Mr. South, Major Kater, &c., for as they were not members of the R. Society at the time of publication, they may perhaps not be possessed of that necessary Appendix.

The next messenger will take the book Mr. Babbage wishes for, and I want very much to send you some of the numerous philosophical productions in which this country my nephew Groskopf says abounds, but I am at a loss on what to fix my choice. _I wish you would let me know if any of the works of Schelling are known in England?_ Of him it is said that his philosophy is entirely new, and beyond all what goes before, and so profound, that nobody _here_ can understand him, &c.

Believe me yours most affectionately, CAR. HERSCHEL.

FROM MISS HERSCHEL TO LADY HERSCHEL.

HANOVER, _Dec. 18, 1822_.

MY DEAR LADY HERSCHEL,—

At last I am enabled to inform you of the safe arrival of my boxes and trunks, which only came the day before yesterday, and then I was obliged to wait till the keys were sent by to-day’s post, but I have the satisfaction to find that every article is exactly as I had packed them with my own hands. For the last three weeks, I was despairing of ever seeing them again, for the vessel had been no less than three weeks at sea, and then had been obliged to unload six German miles beyond Bremen for want of water in the Weser. The country is in general much distressed for want of water; our large rivers may be passed on foot, &c. But of these things you are perhaps informed by the newspapers, and of many other circumstances; such as the mice eating the corn as soon as sowed, so that sowing it three times over was without effect, till the mice were destroyed by a pest coming among them.

I would give anything if I at this moment could see with my own eyes how you and my dear nephew are; tell him that on the day after Christmas (Dec. 26th) the messenger will leave Hanover, and will take the book for Mr. Babbage, and one in two volumes for my nephew; also two or three letters of his father’s which I have found among some papers of my brother Alex.

I know not if I mentioned it in my last that I selected all his last receipts when he left England, and shall keep them yet a little longer.

As yet I lead but a dull sort of life; the town is much too gay for me—plays, concerts, card parties, walking, &c. I cannot take part _in any_; my cold in my head is still very bad, and my poor brother is frequently unwell, and for want of my trunks I could not accept Mrs. Beckedorff’s invitation to meet Madam Zimmermann, &c., in an evening, on account of not having clean things; but she is so kind as to call on me sometimes among all the hurry she is engaged in at present with the Princess Augusta.

Mr. Gisewell came a few days ago to see me; he lives a little way out of town, and poor Mrs. G. keeps her bed, and is hardly ever well; their eldest daughter is happily situated with the Queen of Würtemberg, and Mr. Gisewell enjoys a very lucrative situation.

I wish you could conveniently acquaint my nephew, H. Griesbach, as soon as possible, that my brother has received an answer to the letter he sent to Antwerp to the sister of H. Griesbach, and that in the parcel which the messenger will bring will be enclosed her letter to Mr. H. G.

I hope you will make Miss Baldwin write me soon a long account how yourself and all _around_ and _with_ you are, but pray let it be a favourable one, and remember me to all (who are so good as to inquire after me) most cordially, and believe me,

My dear Lady H., Your very affectionate CAR. HERSCHEL.

P.S.—We have had a few days’ very severe frost; to-morrow I shall unpack my thermometer; I suppose I shall find the difference between a German and an English winter, though they make the rooms hot enough with their stoves; but then I am afraid of firing their chimneys, and we have no water, though the police have demanded that every housekeeper shall be provided with eight buckets of water in their kitchen; besides, the price of fuel is enormous, owing to the French having destroyed all the forests.

[Sidenote: 1822. _Letters.—Life in Hanover._]

FROM MISS HERSCHEL TO J. F. W. HERSCHEL, ESQ.

HANOVER, _Dec. 26, 1822_.

MY DEAR NEPHEW,—

The parcel I am packing up contains so many odds and ends, that I think it will be necessary to give you an inventory of them. The most interesting to you, I think, will be the three letters from your dear father (which I found among my brother Alexander’s papers), both on account of the handwriting and their containing some accounts of the busy life of the times in which they were written.

Of the philosophical work, I will say nothing further than that I am curious to know if I have sent you sense, or nonsense, that I may know in future how to trust my informer; I am only sorry I could not send them bound, but they came too late from Leipsic for that purpose. In the small cover (with _your_ little man looking through the telescope) is a shade of your Uncle Alex., which you will be so good as to give to your mother, who (if I remember right) wished for the same, after it had been packed up, and she will perhaps be so good as to send the letter to Mr. Henry Griesbach the first time anybody goes to Windsor.

So much for business, and on the other side I will talk a little of myself. But it is a poor account I can give of myself at present, and the worst of it is that I cannot hope for better times. I am still unsettled, and cannot get my books and papers in any order, for it is always noon before I am well enough to do anything, and then visitors run away with the rest of the day till the dinner hour (which is two o’clock). Two or three evenings in each week are spoiled by company. And at the heavens is no getting, for the high roofs of the opposite houses.

But within my room I am determined nothing shall be wanting that can please my eye. Exactly facing me is a bookcase placed on a bureau, to which I will have some glass doors made, so that I can see my books. Opposite this, on a sofa, I am seated, with a sofa-table and my new writing-desk before me, but what good I shall do there the future must tell.

Many more of such like transactions I was going to communicate to you, but I am interrupted by the carpenter (our Andrews), who is come to do some jobs for me, so for this once you will be released from my nonsense.

But one thing I must yet add, which is that you will accept my heartfelt wishes for your health, happiness, and prosperity throughout the coming year and for many more hereafter, in which my brother and sister are joining most sincerely, to yourself and Lady Herschel, and believe me, my dear nephew,

Ever your most affectionate aunt, CAR. HERSCHEL.

[Sidenote: 1823. _Letter to J. F. W. Herschel._]

FROM MISS HERSCHEL TO J. F. W. HERSCHEL, ESQ.

HANOVER, _Feb. 27, 1823_.

MY DEAREST NEPHEW,—

I take the earliest opportunity I have to acquaint you with having received a letter from Mr. H. Goltermann, accompanied with a draft for £2 4_s._ 6_d._, which is already received and safely deposited in my writing-desk. But the information that he had had the pleasure of seeing you in good health afforded me the _greatest_ satisfaction, and he further promised me to forward the parcel to you in Downing Street, which was particularly pleasing to me, as I wished to avoid the sending backward and forward by blundering coachmen.

On the 5th of this month I received your letter without date, but conclude it was written about the same time with those of your dear mother and cousin Mary, dated the 9th and fifteenth of January. I delayed answering them (and must do so still for the present) because I knew that all mails were detained this side of the sea.

One passage in your letter affected me much, it was gratifying to me and unexpected: “... speaks of your _English life_, &c.... But now that you have left the scene of your labours you have the satisfaction of knowing that they are duly appreciated by those you leave behind.” But I can hardly hope that those favourable impressions should be lasting, or rather not be effaced by my hasty departure; but believe me I would not have gone without at least having made the offer of my service for some time longer to you, my dear nephew, had I not felt that it would be in vain to struggle any longer against age and infirmity, and though I had no expectation that the change from the pure country air in which I had lived the best part of my life, to that of the closest part of my native city, would be beneficial to my health and happiness, I preferred it to remaining where I should have had to bewail my inability of making myself useful any longer.

I hope you and Lady H. have not suffered by the severity of the weather; to me it has certainly done no good. I am grown much thinner than I was six months ago; when I look at my hands they put me so in mind of what your dear father’s were, when I saw them tremble under my eyes, as we latterly played at backgammon together. Good night! dear nephew, I will say the rest to-morrow.

By way of postscript I only beg you will give my love and many thanks to your dear mother and cousin for their kind letters; and if the latter will continue from time to time to inform me of all your well-being, I shall equally feel gratified, for it is no matter from which hand I receive the comfortable information.

I remain, ever your affectionate aunt, CAR. HERSCHEL.

FROM MISS HERSCHEL TO J. F. W. HERSCHEL, ESQ.

HANOVER, _April 14, 1823_.

MY DEAREST NEPHEW,—

I hasten to send this sheet, which is but this moment come to hand, and the post within an hour of leaving Hanover. I begin to fear that I shall not hear from you till you send me an acknowledgment of having received the certificate, which we are not able to obtain till after the 10th of April and 10th of October, but January and July it is the 5th. I assure you I would rather go without the money than be so long without hearing from you, or have a line to express your pleasure for the present I offered you and Mr. Babbage by sending the books by the Christmas messenger, of which I, at this moment, have no information that they have been delivered. By the Easter messenger I have sent some mettwurst [a Hanoverian delicacy], which I hope you and your dear mother will find good, but when they are once cut they must be eaten soon, else they are dry and lose all their flavour.

* * * * *

The Germans are very busy about the fame of your dear father; there does not pass a month but something appears in print, and Dr. Groskopf saw in den gelehrten Zeitungen that Professor Pfaff had translated _all_ your dear father’s papers from the Phil. Trans. into German, and which will be published in Dresden. I wish he had left it for some good astronomer to do the same. Pray let me know how you and your dear mother are in health; I am not well, but have a severe cold at present, but am always and still your affectionate aunt,

CAR. HERSCHEL.

[Sidenote: 1823. _Letter to Miss Herschel._]

The following letter from the Princess Sophia of Gloucester is a pleasing memorial of the kindness and amiability of which Miss Herschel experienced so many proofs while she lived at Slough:—

THE PRINCESS SOPHIA MATILDA TO MISS HERSCHEL.

MY DEAR MISS HERSCHEL,—

Your obliging attention in sending the Astronomical Almanack to me I am very sensible of, and at the same time that I return my best thanks for this flattering mark of your recollection, I must express my regret that I am not possessed of more knowledge and leisure, that I might profit sufficiently by your kindness in endeavouring to instruct me. I was very happy to learn that you had reached your native land in safety, and I sincerely form every wish that your health may be _long_ preserved to you!

May I request you to remember me kindly to Mr. and to Miss Beckedorff, and to be assured yourself of the true esteem and regard with which I remain, my dear Miss Herschel,

Yours very faithfully, SOPHIA MATILDA.

LONDON, _June 16, 1823_.

[Sidenote: 1823. _Letter to J. F. W. Herschel._]

FROM MISS HERSCHEL TO J. F. W. HERSCHEL, ESQ.

HANOVER, _June 24, 1823_.

MY DEAREST NEPHEW,—

I had intended to write you a long and very learned epistle, but I am just now informed that the messenger will leave Hanover within a very few hours, and I must content myself with giving you the outlines of what I would have said.

I believe I have mentioned in a former letter to your mother that a Professor Pfaff has announced his intention of giving a translation of your father’s papers. It runs in my head that this professor is but a _Jackanapes_,[32] who will spoil the _broth_,[32] and I wished he would not meddle with what he cannot understand. But I thought it but right to inform you of what is come to my knowledge, particularly as I was told it had been announced again that the translation would appear with corrections and explanations. Dr. Luthmer (in the “Ast. Jahrbuch” for this year you may see a paper by this gentleman) told me since there were two professors of that name (brothers), one an _astrologer_, and if it was the latter he would make nonsense of it.

Miss Baldwin mentioned you were at Cambridge on the business of having your father’s papers printed. I think it could not be amiss if something of your intention could be mentioned in the _Edinburgh Quarterly Review_, which appears here at Hanover, and of course throughout Germany, that it may be known that your father’s labours are in _yours_ and of course in the _most able hands_ to make remarks on them. I only wish to draw your attention this way, but say nothing.

I have mentioned it over and over again that I was so unlucky as to lose the paper on my journey you entrusted to my care for Prof. Gauss. If you have another copy to spare give it to Mr. Goltermann for the return of the messenger; for he has heard of your good intention, and laments my negligence; I shall be introduced to him shortly, when he comes through Hanover again, where he passed through about a fortnight ago on a journey of observation, tending to establish some new discovery of his own, of which we are soon to know more. The theodolite has something to do with it; so much I snapt up in a company of learned ladies who, within these last two months, have taken me into their circle. But I am imitating Robinson Crusoe, who kept up his consequence by keeping out of sight as much as possible when he acted the governor, and when they want to know anything of me, I say I cannot tell!... I did nothing for my brother but what a well-trained puppy dog would have done, that is to say, I did what he commanded me.

I send you a small publication which I think must interest you, but if it contains anything which is new to you I cannot tell. I shall, however, obtain what I very much long for, viz., to see your handwriting, for surely you will write me a line of thanks?

I am in general too unwell to sit much at the writing-table, and have not been able to do anything which could be of use to you. The letters which you will receive under cover to you I hope you will do me the favour to cause them to be safely delivered. They are sealed already, else I should have added a P.S. to your dear mother of the following, viz., that I was agreeably surprised by a letter this morning from the Princessin Sophia of Gloucester, and that my brother’s family are all well at present; my brother in particular makes work for the tailor to let out his waistcoats, and they are happy to have their eldest daughter for a fortnight with them on a visit; she is a truly interesting little delicate creature just turned of forty, and has one daughter fit to be married, two sons preparing for the university, and the youngest weaned a month ago; she is to me a wonder when I look at her, she reads English fluently, French she was used to speak like her mother tongue from her infancy.

I am interrupted, and must seal up the packet.

And I remain, dear nephew, Your most faithful and affectionate aunt, CAR. HERSCHEL.

FROM MISS HERSCHEL TO J. F. W. HERSCHEL, ESQ.

HANOVER, _July 14, 1823_.

MY DEAREST NEPHEW,—

As a proof of my being still among the number of the living, you will perhaps not dislike to see my own handwriting added to that of the three gentlemen who signed my certificate. But I am at a loss for a subject which should be interesting to you, because, hearing so seldom from you, I begin to fear my correspondence may turn out to be troublesome. But still I long to hear a little oftener that you and your dear mother are well; for since April eleventh (date of Lady H.’s letter) I have had no assurance of the same on which I could depend.

* * * * *

I wish often that I could see what you were doing, that I might give you a caution (if necessary) not to overwork yourself like your dear father