CHAP, vi.] Gold Medal of Astronomical Society. 223 



But that your Council has not selected one from the many 

 of its members infinitely more competent to do justice to 

 the transcendent merits of that illustrious lady is most 

 assuredly matter of regret. I must therefore throw myself 

 upon your indulgence, hoping that the goodness of the cause 

 may in some measure compensate for the inability of its 

 advocate. 



The labours of Miss Herschel are so intimately connected 

 with, and are generally so dependent upon, those of her 

 illustrious brother, that an investigation of the latter is 

 absolutely necessary ere we can form the most remote idea 

 of the extent of the former. But when it is considered that 

 Sir W. Herschel's contributions to astronomical science 

 occupy sixty-seven memoirs, communicated from time to 

 time to the Royal Society, and embrace a period of forty 

 years, it will not be expected that I should enter into their 

 discussion. To the Philosophical Transactions I must 

 refer you, and shall content myself with the hasty mention 

 of some of her more immediate claims to the distinction 

 now conferred. To deliver an eulogy (however deserved) 

 upon his memory is not the purpose for which I am placed 

 here. 



His first catalogue of new nebulae and clusters of stars, 

 amounting in number to one thousand, was made from 

 observations with the twenty-foot reflector in the years 

 1783, 1784, and 1785. A second thousand was furnished 

 by means of the same instrument in 1785, 1786, 1787, and 

 1788; while the places of 500 others were discovered 

 between 1788 and 1802. But when we have thus enume- 

 rated the results obtained in the course of sweeps with this 

 instrument, and taken into consideration the extent and 

 variety of the other observations which were at the same 

 time in progress, a most important part yet remains untold. 

 Who participated in his toils ? Who braved with him the 



