128 SIR JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM HERSCHEL. 



This deep reverence for bis father's memory, and this high apprecia- 

 tion of the vahie of liis discoveries — neither undeserved nor overrated — 

 possessed Sir John Herschel to the last. His " idolatry " of the great 

 telescope by which the sidereal heavens had been first unveiled to 

 human sight has been called " weak in sentiment and dubious in taste." 

 Arago did not so regard the means by which its remains were pre- 

 served, nor do other philosophers who hold the heart to be ever 

 superior to the intellect. On the 1st of January, 1840, Sir John Her- 

 schel and his family, the old servants among the number, assembled at 

 Slough. The metal tube had been placed horizontally in the meridian. 

 At noon they walked in procession around the instrument, entered the 

 capacious cylinder, seated themselves on benches previously ])repared, 

 sung a requiem, and then, ranging themselves around that — call it 

 a piece of metal if you will — which had been the means of opening the 

 star-world to human sight, witnessed its hermetical sealing. " I know 

 not," says Arago, " whether those persons who can only appreciate 

 things from the i^eculiar point of view from which they have been 

 accustomed to look, may think there was something strange in several 

 of the details of this ceremony ; I affirm, however, that the whole world 

 will applaud the pious feeling which actuated Sir John Herschel, and 

 that all the friends of science will thank him for having consecrated the 

 humble garden where his father achieved such immortal labors by a 

 monument more expressive in its simplicity than pyramids or statues." 



The true place of Sir Johu Herschel among the great lights of his age 

 cannot be accurately fixed until this generation shall have passed away. 

 The feelings, prejudices, and partialities of contemporaneous life warp 

 correct judgment. Proximity is unfavorable to true appreciation. No 

 one knew this better than Biot, when he replied, in answer to the ques- 

 tion, " Whom of all tlie philosophers of Euroj^e do you regard as the 

 most worthy successor of Laplace ?" " If 1 did not love him so much, I 

 should unhesitatingly say Sir John Herschel." Indeed, through his 

 long confinement and ])rotracted old age, the seekers after scientific 

 truth not only in the English universities, but over all Europe, in their 

 difficulties, anticipations, and successes, betook themselves to the aged 

 philosopher of Collingwood. 



Of the work done by the Herschels, father and son, during a peiiod 

 of almost one hundred years, it is fitting that something be said in the 

 conclusion of this memoir. That work is not in general correctly un- 

 <lerstood. The labors of the elder Herschel are indeed associated in the 

 ])ublic mind with those of his son, but the real end and aim of those 

 hibors, the qualities which characterized the labors of each, and the 

 steps by which the two men moved on, each like a star in its orbit, 



" Making no hastt- and taking no rest," 



towards the grand consummation, it is only necessary to peruse the 

 obituary notices which ai)peared upon his death to see are wholly mis- 

 understood, even by men of intelligence. 



