340 Examination of Lalande's Remarks on 



In thus flying, every new year, throucrh such a variety of 

 matter, and becoming as it were a Historian on the wing, 

 there is ioine danger however of losing that distinct discern- 

 ment of things below, which alone can bestow value on any 

 such publication. This may happen by soaring too high, 

 or by skimming too rapidly when nearer the surface; but' 

 most of all from that giddiness which sometimes overtakes 

 very good people, when, either in reality or in imagination, 

 they are lifted up far above the level of liuir fcUow-niortals. 

 Such reflociions, sir, spontaneously arose when, amongst 

 the morsels of history above referred to, I perused the fol- 

 lowing paragraph concerning!; an excellent person, highly en- 

 titled to the regard of men of science, and who, by his ge- 

 nius and invincible perseverance, has so much enriched astro- 

 nomy, and raised the fame of this country, by his manifold 

 sublime discoveries in the heavens. 



In page 1 29 of your Magazine for July last, the following 

 passage makes up a link in Lalande's History of Astronomy 

 for last year : 



" The 40-feet telescope of Mr. Hcrsehel has not yet fur- 

 nished the extraordinary results we expected from it. I 

 wrote to him that I was desirous of coming to England to 

 visit this prodigious instrument, as soon as he wrote me 

 that he had no objections: I have not yet received his an- 

 swer. As Mr. Herschel is now 68 years of age, I am afraid 

 he will not be able to satisfy himself, and that he will not 

 find a successor capable of terminating completely so diffi- 

 cult an enterprise." 



Now, sir, to continue for a moment longer the former 

 allusion, I really should have expected, when so celebrated 

 and so miiqu^ an object came in sight, that it would have 

 arrested our historian in his airy career, and have lured him 

 to hover a while in its zenith, that, by some competent ex- 

 amination, he might have represented it very differently in 

 his bulletin. But in place of that, he brushes away after a 

 short flourish, the evident tendency of which is to spread the 

 belief, that Dr. Herschel has failed of success in construct- 

 ing this noble instrument, so much exceeding all former ex- 

 ample. 



The 



