CAROLINE LUCRE TI A HERSCHEL. 63 



of which ambitious women complain so much in these degenerate days. 

 She continues the diary of her labors : 



"4^. I wrote to Hanover; booked my observations ; made accounts. The 

 nigbt is cloudy. 



" 5th. Calculated nebulas all day. The night was tolerably fine, and I saw 

 the comet. 



"QthI booked my observations of last night. Received a letter from Dr. 

 Blagden in the morning, and in the evening Sir J. Banks, Lord Palmerston, and 

 Dr. Blagden, came and saw the comet. The evening was very fine. 



"7th and 8th. Booked my observations. On the 8th the evening was 

 cloudy. 



" 9th. I calculated 100 nebulae. 



10th. Calculated 100 nebulae. The smith borrowed a guinea. 



" 11th. I completed, to-day, the catalogue of the first thousand. 



"ISth. Prof. Kratzensteine, from Copenhagen, was here to-day. In the 

 evening I saw the comet, and swept. 



" lith. I calculated 140 nebulae to-day, which brought me up to the last- 

 discovered nebulae, and therefore the work is finished." 



Miss Herschel says it is impossible for her to give an account of 

 all that passed around her in the following two years, for they were 

 spent in a perfect chaos of business. 



But in 1788, after he was fifty years old, her brother married a 

 wealthy widow, of about the same age as Miss Herschel. It is said 

 by the editor that the wife was very amiable and gentle, and that the 

 jointure she brought enabled her husband to pursue his scientific ca- 

 reer without anxiety about expenses. But this was evidently not so. 

 We must infer from the statements of Miss Herschel that this wealth, 

 like royal patronage, was not applied to relieve Sir William from 

 drudgery ; for," to the end of her brother's life, she complains that, 

 instead of pursuing original investigations, he had to spend an enor- 

 mous amount of time and labor making and selling telescopes ; and 

 that the fatigue and exhaustion from polishing mirrors told seriously 

 upon his health. In 1805, more than a dozen years after his marriage, 

 we hear of his finishing an instrument for the King of Spain, and at 

 about the same time another for the Prince of Canino. She further 

 says that he was miserably stinted for room for his instruments, and 

 continually bemoans the embarrassments and hinderances which de- 

 feated his plans of study, and asserts that, during the last years of his 

 life, his spirits were depressed and his temper soured by these cir- 

 cumstances. 



In her diary, all that Miss Herschel says of her brother's marriage 

 is this : 



" It may easily be supposed that I must have been fully employed (besides 

 minding the heavens) to prepare everything as well as I could against the time 

 I was to give up the place of housekeeper on the 8th of May." 



When, in after-years, she was preparing the materials for her biog- 



