188 Sir John Herschel and Modern Astronomy. [| April, 
trasted with their meteor-flights—“a moment bright, then gone 
for ever.” 
Sir John Frederick William Herschel, Bart., was born in 1790 
at Slough, near Windsor. He is the only son of Sir Frederick 
William Herschel, whose name is for ever associated with astro- 
nomical discovery. From the father the son derived his passion 
for the study of the stars,—and it may be incidentally noted here 
that in this family we have the rare example of the father, the son, 
and the grandson (Alexander Herschel) pursuing with great success 
the study of the exactest of the sciences. There is a pleasure and 
a purpose in tracing the progress of an individual mind, especially 
when that mind has made itself a place in the history of science. 
We have not the information necessary for treating inductively our 
examination of the development of the mental powers of the young 
John Herschel. We have heard numerous anecdotes of an absent, 
a retiring, a star-gazing boy, but, although there may be traces of 
truth in some of these, we believe they generally resolve themselves 
into the every-day expression of those who do not understand the 
condition of a meditative youth, loving solitude, because in solitude 
alone could he hold communion with nature’s works and view her 
charms unrolled. John Herschel was a student of St. John’s 
College, Cambridge, where he achieved the honourable position of 
Senior Wrangler, and became Smith’s Prizeman in 1813. He 
appears from this time to have devoted himself seriously to those 
pursuits with which his father’s name was already associated. 
In 1816 we find him giving a large amount of time to observa- 
tions on the multiple stars; these observations were continued, 
sometimes alone, and sometimes in conjunction with Sir James 
South, until, as the result of ten thousand observations, we find in 
the ‘ Philosophical Transactions for 1825’ “a series of micrometric 
measures of 380 double stars, executed in conjunction with Sir J. 
South in 1821-2-5.” 
Previously to this we have the subject of this notice producing, 
with Dr. Peacock, the well-known Dean of Ely, a reconstruction of 
Lacroix’s treatise ‘On the Differential Calculus, and he was at the 
same time a zealous student of chemistry and of the physical 
sciences. The ‘ Philosophical Transactions for 1826’ contain an 
important paper, entitled “An account of a Series of Observations 
made in the Summer of 1825, for the purpose of determining the 
difference of the Meridians of the Royal Observatories of Green- 
wich and Paris.” or several years, especially in 1825, 6, and 7, 
Mr. Herschel was occupied at Slough with the 20-feet reflector 
making observations on the multiple stars. The labour of these 
investigations may be judged of by the titles of the several series 
which were published in the ‘Memoirs of the Astronomical Society,’ 
and which we copy so far as to show the work performed :— 
