Introd^lctwn. vii 



with all her heart and with all her strength. She 

 might have become a distinguished woman on her 

 own account, for with the "seven-foot Newtonian 

 sweeper " given to her by her brother, she discovered 

 eight comets first and last. But the pleasure of seek- 

 ing and finding for^herself was scarcely tasted. She 

 "minded the heavens" for her brother; she worked for 

 him, not for herself, and the unconscious self-denial 

 with which she gave up her own pleasure in the 

 use of her " sweeper," is not the least beautiful 

 feature in her life. She must have been witty and 

 amusing, to judge from her books of "Recollections." 

 When past eighty, she wrote what she called " a little 

 history of my life from 1772 1778 " for her nephew, 

 Sir John Herschel, the son of her brother William, 

 that he might know something of his excellent grand- 

 parents, as well as of the immense difficulties which 

 his father had to surmount in his life and labours. It 

 was not to tell about herself, but of others, that she 

 wrote them. There is not any good biography of Sir 

 William Herschel, and the incidental revelations of 

 him in these Recollections are valuable. They show 

 how well he deserved the love and devotion she 

 rendered to him. Great as were his achievements in 

 science, and his genius, they were borne up and 

 ennobled by the beauty and worth of his own inner 

 life. 



These memorials of his father and his aunt were 



