226 Caroline Littretia Hersckd. [1S28. 



tion of this Society, no one has been adjudged which has 

 been earned by services such as hers. Convey to her our 

 unfeigned regret that she is not resident amongst us ; and 

 join to it our wishes, nay our prayers, that as her former 

 days have been glorious, so her future may be happy.* 



Extract from the Report of the Council of the Astrono- 

 mical Society to the Annual Meeting, Feb. 13, 1835. t 



" Your Council has no small pleasure in recommending 

 that the names of two ladies, distinguished in different 

 walks of astronomy, be placed on the list of honorary mem- 

 bers. On the propriety of such a step, in an astronomical 

 point of view, there can be but one voice ; and your Council 

 is of opinion that the time is gone by when either feeling or 

 prejudice, by whichever name it may be proper to call it, 

 should be allowed to interfere with the payment of a well- 

 earned tribute of respect. Your Council has hitherto felt 

 that, whatever might be its own sentiment on the subject, 

 or however able and willing it might be to defend such a 

 measure, it had no right to place the name of a lady in a 

 position the propriety of which might be contested, though 

 upon what it might consider narrow grounds and false 

 principles. But your Council has no fear that such a dif- 

 ference could now take place between any men whose 

 opinion could avail to guide that of society at large ; and, 

 abandoning compliment on the one hand, and false delicacy 



* The author of this hasty address feels no slight gratification in having 

 been present on the 1st June, 1821, at the last observations with the twenty- 

 foot reflector, in which Miss Herschel was engaged. He remembers also, not 

 without regret, but with becoming gratitude, that the mirror used for his im- 

 provement, on the occasion was inserted, for the last time, in the tube, by 

 the hands of Sir William Herschel. Memoirt Astronomical Society, Vol. III., 

 p. 409. 



t This extract, as it bears on the subject of the recognition of Miss Her- 

 chel's labours, is inserted here, though somewhat before its time. 



