66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



or anybody, till you, sir, have seen it ; but if yon could, without much trouble, 

 give my best respects, and that part of this letter which points out the place of 

 the comet, to Mr. Wollaston, you would make me very happy. 



" I am, dear sir, etc., etc., C. H. 



?> 



From all these gentlemen her labors and discoveries received the 

 most cordial recognition. In his reply, Sir J. Banks said : " I shall 

 take care to make our astronomical friends acquainted with the obli- 

 gations they are under to your diligence." Mr. Aubert closes his let- 

 ter with the assurance of the pleasure he felt at her success, and 

 with the offer of any instrument she might wish to use; while Dr. 

 Maskelyne addressed her as his " worthy sister in astronomy." 



The fifth comet was discovered December 15, 1791, and all that 

 she says about it is, " My brother wrote an account of it to Sir J. Banks, 

 Dr. Maskelyne, and several other gentlemen." The sixth, found Oc- 

 tober 8th, is briefly recognized ; and the seventh, discovered Novem- 

 ber 7, 1795, is known as Encke's comet, because he determined its 

 periodicity. It was discovered by four different observers before its 

 identity was recognized. Miss Herschel was its second discoverer in 

 order of time. Her eighth and last comet was discovered August 8. 

 1797. 



We learn from her diary that in October of this year her home 

 with her brother at Slough was broken up, and she went to live in 

 solitude in lodgings, and this mode of life she continued for twenty- 

 five years, till her brother's death, when she left England to join her 

 relations in Hanover. Why she left her brother's house she does not 

 explain, nor is it necessary. In referring to her departure she only 

 says: "My telescopes on the roof, to which I was to have occasional 

 access, as also the room with the sweeping and observing apparatus, 

 remained in their former order, where I most days spent some hours in 

 preparing work to go on with at my lodgings." In a letter to Dr. 

 Maskelyne, written in September, 1798, she says that, during the past 

 year, she has not thought herself " well or in spirits enough to vent- 

 ure from home." She spent her first lonely winter in getting ready 

 for the press some of her own astronomical work. 



The account of her life from 1798 until her brother's death, in 

 1822, occupies about fifty pages of the volume, and consists mostly of 

 extracts from her diary. It is not a record of discoveries or personal 

 triumphs, but of unceasing labor for her brother, knowing no respite 

 in sickness or in health, by night or by day, in winter or in summer, 

 amid hardships and discouragements that never daunted her affection- 

 ate nature. During her first year in lodgings, she complains of being 

 harassed by the loss of time in going backward and forward, and by 

 not having immediate access to books and papers; and these troubles, 

 with varying features, pursued her to the end of her brother's life. 

 The first three or four years she changed her lodgings often, but in 

 1801 she settled in Upton, where she remained till 1810, at which time 



