CHAP, vii.] Latter Days. 343 



Struve and Adams, who, with M. Leverrier, are now at 

 Collingwood. 



Adieu, dear aunt, 

 From your ever-affectionate nephew, 



J. F. W. HERSCHEL. 



But the time was past when such gifts could be 

 acknowledged with the old enthusiasm, though the 

 faculty to appreciate them had not failed, and we can 

 well imagine how nothing in the power of man to 

 bestow could have given her such pleasure on her 

 death-bed as this last crowning completion of her 

 brother's work. 



The Day-hook had long ceased. The final entry, 

 on 3rd September, 1845, is " Astronomischen Nach- 

 richten * came in." As the letters show, the never- 

 failing birthday festival had been gallantly encountered, 

 and the accustomed offerings of her many friends with 

 their good wishes, always including those of the Royal 

 Family, received in the usual place. But the curtain 

 begins to descend, and the months to go by with only 

 a bulletin to announce that she still lived, and, as the 

 following extract from a letter written by her friend 

 Miss Beckedorff shows, with unabated will and perfectly 

 collected faculties : 



Her decided objection to having her bed placed in a 

 warmer room had brought on a cold and cough, and so firm 



* The days on which this periodical arrived are always noted in the Day- 

 books. 



