CHAP, vii.] The Great Telescope.. 335 



I am too tired at present, else I was going to tell you how 

 they are building. Hanover is now twice as large as when you 

 saw it last ; nothing hut castles will serve them any longer. 

 I have all this from hearsay, for I have not been downstairs 



since February 3, 1842. 



***** 



They talk of nothing here at the clubs but of the great 

 mirror and the great man who made it. I have but one 

 answer for all, which is, "Der Kerl ist tin Narr!"* .... 



MISS HERSCHEL TO LADY HERSCHEL. 



March 4, 1845. 

 MY DEAREST NIECE, 



* . * * * * 



Have I understood you aright ? Saw you the ther- 

 mometer 1^ above zero ? the lowest I have heard of here 

 was only 13 below freezing? but we are buried in snow ! 



March 5th. No alteration in the weather, nor in my affec- 

 tion for my dear niece and nephew and their ten children 1 



the first is as cold as the latter is warm ! 



***** 



April 29, 1845. 

 In his father's library my nephew must have found a 



folio volume of H (an astronomer and copper engraver), 



where, for every hour a distinct picture [of the moon] is 

 given. In the Phil. Transactions for 1780, p. 507, is the 

 first paper of William Herschel on the Moon. In 1787; 

 1792, p. 27 ; 1793, p. 206, measure of mountains, &c. 



Twenty-three years ago, when first I came here, I visited 

 Madame W. (not von) once or twice, saw her observatory 

 and a telescope, I believe not above 24-inch focal length ; 

 at that time she amused herself with modelling the heads of 

 the Roman Emperors : her daughter, then a girl, was a poet, 



* The fellow is a fool ! 



