Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works Part 7

1798, December 10.

DR. BURNEY TO MADAME D'ARBLAY.

"HERSCHEL has been in town for short spurts, and back again two or three times, leaving Mrs. HERSCHEL behind (in town) to transact law business. I had him here two whole days."

The reading of the ma.n.u.script of the _Poetical History of Astronomy_ was continued, "and HERSCHEL was so humble as to confess that I knew more of the history of astronomy than he did, and had surprised him with the ma.s.s of information I had got together.

"He thanked me for the entertainment and instruction I had given him. 'Can anything be grander?' and all this before he knows a word of what I have said of himself--all his discoveries, as you may remember, being kept back for the twelfth and last book."

DR. BURNEY TO MADAME D'ARBLAY.

"SLOUGH, _Monday morning._ _July 22, 1799_, in bed at Dr. HERSCHEL'S, half-past five, where I can neither sleep nor lie idle.

"My Dear f.a.n.n.y:--I believe I told you on Friday that I was going to finish the perusal of my astronomical verses to the great astronomer on Sat.u.r.day.

"After tea Dr. HERSCHEL proposed that we two should retire into a quiet room in order to resume the perusal of my work, in which no progress has been made since last December. The evening was finished very cheerfully; and we went to our bowers not much out of humor with each other or the world. . . . After dinner we all agreed to go to the terrace [at Windsor]--Mr., Mrs., and Miss H., with their nice little boy, and three young ladies. Here I met with almost everybody I wished and expected to see previous to the king's arrival.

"But now here comes Will, and I must get up, and make myself up to go down to the perusal of my last book, ent.i.tled _Herschel_. So good-morrow."

"CHELSEA, _Tuesday._

"Not a moment could I get to write till now. . . . I must tell you that HERSCHEL proposed to me to go with him to the king's concert at night, he having permission to go when he chooses, his five nephews (GRIESBACHS) making a princ.i.p.al part of the band. 'And,' says he, 'I know you will be welcome.'"

An intimacy was gradually established between HERSCHEL and Dr. BURNEY.

They saw each other often at the meetings of the Royal Society, and HERSCHEL frequently stayed at the doctor's house. "On the first evening HERSCHEL spent at Chelsea, when I called for my ARGAND lamp, HERSCHEL, who had not seen one of those lamps, was surprised at the great effusion of light, and immediately calculated the difference between that and a single candle, and found it sixteen to one."[25]

In 1793 we find HERSCHEL as a witness for his friend JAMES WATT, in the celebrated case of WATT _vs._ BULL, which was tried in the Court of Common Pleas. And from MUIRHEAD'S Life of WATT, it appears that HERSCHEL visited WATT at Heathfield in 1810.

A delightful picture of the old age of HERSCHEL is given by the poet CAMPBELL,[26] whose nature was fitted to perceive the beauties of a grand and simple character like HERSCHEL'S:

"[BRIGHTON], _September 15, 1813_.

. . . "I wish you had been with me the day before yesterday, when you would have joined me, I am sure, deeply in admiring a great, simple, good old man--Dr. HERSCHEL. Do not think me vain, or at least put up with my vanity, in saying that I almost flatter myself I have made him my friend. I have got an invitation, and a pressing one, to go to his house; and the lady who introduced me to him, says he spoke of me as if he would really be happy to see me. . . . I spent all Sunday with him and his family. His son is a prodigy in sciences, and fond of poetry, but very una.s.suming. . . . Now, for the old astronomer himself. His simplicity, his kindness, his anecdotes, his readiness to explain--and make perfectly conspicuous too--his own sublime conceptions of the universe are indescribably charming. He is seventy-six, but fresh and stout; and there he sat, nearest the door, at his friend's house, alternately smiling at a joke, or contentedly sitting without share or notice in the conversation.

Any train of conversation he follows implicitly; anything you ask he labors with a sort of boyish earnestness to explain.

"I was anxious to get from him as many particulars as I could about his interview with BUONAPARTE.[27] The latter, it was reported, had astonished him by his astronomical knowledge.

"'No,' he said, 'the First Consul did surprise me by his quickness and versatility on all subjects; but in science he seemed to know little more than any well-educated gentleman, and of astronomy much less for instance than our own king. His general air,' he said, 'was something like affecting to know more than he did know.' He was high, and tried to be great with HERSCHEL, I suppose, without success; and 'I remarked,' said the astronomer, 'his hypocrisy in concluding the conversation on astronomy by observing how all these glorious views gave proofs of an Almighty Wisdom.' I asked him if he thought the system of LAPLACE to be quite certain, with regard to the total security of the planetary system from the effects of gravitation losing its present balance? He said, No; he thought by no means that the universe was secured from the chance of sudden losses of parts.

"He was convinced that there had existed a planet between _Mars_ and _Jupiter_, in our own system, of which the little asteroids, or planetkins, lately discovered, are indubitably fragments; and 'Remember,' said he, 'that though they have discovered only four of those parts, there will be thousands--perhaps thirty thousand more--yet discovered.' This planet he believed to have been lost by explosion.

"With great kindness and patience he referred me, in the course of my attempts to talk with him, to a theorem in NEWTON'S 'Principles of Natural Philosophy' in which the time that the light takes to travel from the sun is proved with a simplicity which requires but a few steps in reasoning. In talking of some inconceivably distant bodies, he introduced the mention of this plain theorem, to remind me that the progress of light could be measured in the one case as well as the other. Then, speaking of himself, he said, with a modesty of manner which quite overcame me, when taken together with the greatness of the a.s.sertion: 'I have looked _further into s.p.a.ce than ever human being did before me_. I have observed stars, of which the light, it can be proved, must take two millions of years to reach this earth.'

"I really and unfeignedly felt at this moment as if I had been conversing with a supernatural intelligence. 'Nay, more,' said he, 'if those distant bodies had ceased to exist two millions of years ago, we should still see them, as the light would travel after the body was gone. . . .' These were HERSCHEL'S words; and if you had heard him speak them, you would not think he was apt to tell more than the truth.

"After leaving HERSCHEL I felt elevated and overcome; and have in writing to you made only this memorandum of some of the most interesting moments of my life."

CAMPBELL'S conscientious biographer appears to have felt that the value of this charming account of his interview with HERSCHEL was in its report of astronomical facts and opinions, and he adds a foot-note to explain that "HERSCHEL'S opinion never amounted to more than _hypothesis_ having some degree of probability. Sir JOHN HERSCHEL remembers his father saying, 'If that hypothesis were true, and _if_ the planet destroyed were as large as the earth, there must have been at least thirty-thousand such fragments,' but always as an hypothesis--he was never heard to declare any degree of conviction that it was so."

For us, the value of this sympathetic account of a day in HERSCHEL'S life is in its conception of the simplicity, the modesty, the "boyish earnestness," the elevation of thought and speech of the old philosopher; and in the impression made on the feelings, not the mind, of the poet, then thirty-five years old.

In a letter to ALISON, CAMPBELL reverts with great pleasure to the day spent with HERSCHEL:

"SYDENHAM, _December 12, 1813_.

"MY DEAREST ALISON:--

"I spent three weeks with my family at Brighton, in charming weather, and was much pleased with, as well as benefited by, the place. There I met a man with whom you will stare at the idea of my being congenial, or having the vanity to think myself so--the great HERSCHEL. He is a simple, great being. . . . I once in my life looked at NEWTON'S _Principia_, and attended an astronomical cla.s.s at Glasgow; wonderful it seemed to myself, that the great man condescended to understand my questions; to become apparently earnest in communicating to me as much information as my limited capacity and preparation for such knowledge would admit. He invited me to see him at his own abode, and so kindly that I could not believe that it was mere good breeding; but a sincere wish to see me again. I had a full day with him; he described to me his whole interview with BUONAPARTE; said it was not true, as reported, that BUONAPARTE understood astronomical subjects deeply, but affected more than he knew.

"In speaking of his great and chief telescope, he said with an air, not of the least pride, but with a greatness and simplicity of expression that struck me with wonder, 'I have looked further into s.p.a.ce than ever human being did before me. I have observed stars, of which the light takes _two millions_ of years to travel to this globe.' I mean to pay him a reverential visit at Slough, as soon as my book is out, this winter."

In 1807 CAROLINA HERSCHEL has this entry in her diary:

"_October_ 4.--My brother came from Brighton. The same night two parties from the Castle came to see the comet, and during the whole month my brother had not an evening to himself. As he was then in the midst of polis.h.i.+ng the forty-foot mirror, rest became absolutely necessary after a day spent in that most laborious work; and it has ever been my opinion that on the 14th of October his nerves received a shock of which he never got the better afterwards."

In the spring of 1808 he was quite seriously ill; but in May the observing went on again. In 1809 and 1810 his princ.i.p.al investigations were upon physical subjects (NEWTON'S rings), and in 1811 the only long series of observations was upon the comet of that year. After 1811 the state of HERSCHEL'S health required that his observations should be much less frequent. Much of the time after 1811 he was absent, and his work at home consisted largely in arranging the results of his previous labors, and in computations connected with them. All through the years 1814 to 1822, HERSCHEL'S health was very feeble. The severe winter of 1813-14 had told materially upon him. In 1814, however, he undertook to repolish the forty-foot mirror, but was obliged to give it over.

He now found it necessary to make frequent little excursions for change of air and scene. His faithful sister remained at home, bringing order into the ma.s.ses of ma.n.u.script, and copying the papers for the Royal Society.

She was sick at heart, fearing that each time she saw her brother it would be the last. In 1818 she says:

"Feb. 11, I went to my brother and remained with him till the 23d.

We spent our time, though not in idleness, in sorrow and sadness.

He is not only unwell, but low in spirits."

In 1818 (December 16), HERSCHEL went to London to have his portrait painted by ARTAUD. While he was in London his will was made.[28]

In 1819 there is a glimmer of the old-time light. In a note HERSCHEL says:

"LINA:--There is a great comet. I want you to a.s.sist me. Come to dine and spend the day here. If you can come soon after one o'clock, we shall have time to prepare maps and telescopes. I saw its situation last night. It has a long tail.

"_July 4, 1819._"

This note has been carefully kept by his sister, and on it she has written: "I keep this as a relic. Every line _now_ traced by the hand of my dear brother becomes a treasure to me."

So the next three years pa.s.sed away. Sir WILLIAM[29] was daily more and more feeble. He spent his time in putting his works in order, but could devote only a few moments each day to this. His sister says: