Part 1 (1/2)

Sir Willialeton Holden

PREFACE

In the following account of the life and works of Sir WILLIAM HERSCHEL, I have been obliged to depend strictly upon data already in print--the _Mes and the memoirs and diaries of his cotemporaries The review of his published works will, I trust, be of use It is based upon a careful study of all his papers in the _Philosophical Transactions_ and elsewhere

A life of HERSCHEL which shall be satisfactory in every particular can only be written after a full examination of the land; but as two generations have passed since his death, and as no biography yet exists which approaches to coy seems to me to be needed for a conscientious attempt to make the best use of the scanty material which we do possess

This study will, I trust, serve to exhibit so s to the whole public His private life belongs to his family, until the tireatest of practical astronomers and of the inner life of one of its reat and ardent land

CHAPTER I

EARLY YEARS; 1738-1772

Of the great modern philosophers, that one of whom least is known, is WILLIAM HERSCHEL We may appropriate the words which escaped hiion of the sky near the body of _Scorpio_ was passing slowly through the field of his great reflector, during one of his sweeps, to express our own sense of absence of light and knowledge: _Hier ist wahrhaftig ein Loch im Hiraphicalhis papers

This has never been hly authentic sources of information in possession of the world, are a letter written by HERSCHEL hi request for a sketch of his life, and the _Memoir and Correspondence of CAROLINE HERSCHEL_ (London, 1876), a precious memorial not only of his life, but of one which otherould have remained almost unknown, and one, too, which the world could ill afford to lose The latter, which has been ably edited by Mrs MARY CORNWALLIS HERSCHEL,[1] is the only source of knowledge in regard to the early years of the great astronoained froraphy of the time, affords the data for those personal details of his life, habits, and character, which seeh partial conception of his acquires

The letter referred to was published in the Gottingen Magazine of Science and Literature, III, 4, shortly after the nah his discovery of _Uranus_, but while the circumstances of the discovery, and the condition of the amateur who made it, were still entirely unknown

The editor (LICHTENBERG) says:

”Herr HERSCHEL was good enough to send h Herr MAGELLAN, copies of his Dissertations on Double Stars, on the Parallax of the Fixed Stars, and on a new Microift, I requested hiard to his life, for publication in this azine, since various accounts, more or less incorrect, had appeared in several journals In answer, I received a very obliging letter fro to my request, which was sent me with full permission to make it public”

”DATCHET, NEAR WINDSOR, _Nov 15, 1783_

”I was born in Hanover, November, 1738 My father, as a musician, destined me to the same profession, hence I was instructed betie of the theory as well as of the practice of e to study ebra, conic sections, infinitesimal analysis, and the rest

”The insatiable desire for knowledge thus awakened resulted next in a course of languages; I learned French, English, and Latin, and steadfastly resolved henceforth to devote myself wholly to those sciences from the pursuit of which I alone looked for all my future happiness and enjoyment I have never been either necessitated or disposed to alter this resolve My father, whose means were limited, and who consequently could not be as liberal to his children as he would have desired, was compelled to dispose of thee; consequently in my fifteenth year I enlisted inin the arned and went over to England

”My faan, which I had carefully anist in Yorkshi+re, which I finally exchanged for a similar situation at Bath in 1766, and while here the peculiar circureeable as it was lucrative, made it possible for me to occupy myself once more with my studies, especially with mathematics When, in the course of ti on faith, but to see withalready soe of the science of optics, I resolved to manufacture my own telescopes, and after many continuous, deter a so-called Newtonian instruth

From this I advanced to one of ten feet, and at last to one of twenty, for I had fully made up my mind to carry on the improvement of my telescopes as far as it could possibly be done When I had carefully and thoroughly perfected the great instrument in all its parts, I made systematic use of it ina determination never to pass by any, the sation This habit, persisted in, led to the discovery of the new planet (_Georgium Sidus_) This was by no means the result of chance, but a simple consequence of the position of the planet on that particular evening, since it occupied precisely that spot in the heavens which came in the order of the minute observations that I had previously mapped out for myself Had I not seen it just when I did, I must inevitably have come upon it soon after, since uish it from a fixed star in the firstthis sketch to a close As the king had expressed a desire to see my telescope, I took it by his command to Greenwich, where it was compared with the instruments of my excellent friend, Dr MASKELYNE, not only by himself, but by other experts, who pronounced it as their opinion thatordered that the instruht to Windsor, and since it there raciously awarded ht be enabled to relinquish my profession of music, and devote my whole time to astronomy and the improvement of the telescope Gratitude, as well as other considerations specified by me in a paper presented to the Royal Society, of which I aiuiuil_)

And I hope it will retain the name”

We know but little of the family of HERSCHEL The name is undoubtedly Jewish, and is found in Poland, Gerland We learn that the ancestors of the present branch left Moravia about the beginning of the XVIIth century, on account of their change of religion to Protestantism

They becarandfather of WILLIAM, was a brewer in Pirna (a small town near Dresden) Of the two sons of HANS, one, ABRAHAM (born in 1651, died 1718), was eardens at Dresden, and see Of his eldest son, EUSEBIUS, there appears to be little trace in the records of the family

The second son, BENJAMIN, died in infancy; the third, ISAAC, was born in 1707 (Jan 14), and was thus an orphan at eleven years of age ISAAC was the father of the great astronomer