44 HISTORY OF ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERY. 



Divine prerogative. Lord JMacclesfield's eldest son, at a contested election for Oxfordshire, 

 was greeted with the cry from the mob, " Give us back the eleven days we have been 

 robbed of ! " and Bradley's mortal sickness, some years later, was viewed as a punitive 

 dispensation for having participated in the sacrilegious theft. 



The latter half of the eighteenth century furnishes a large catalogue of distinguished 

 names, men of high scientific ability, and, for the most part, of the finest mathematical 

 minds, by whose labours practical astronomy made vast advances, and the physical theory 

 of the universe, as previously developed, was amply illustrated and confirmed. During 

 this era lunar tables were constructed of sufficient accuracy to be employed to solve the 

 great problem of the longitude at sea. This was the work of Mayer, for which his 

 widow received the sum of 3000/. from our government ; and since that period, the pub 

 lication of such tables, showing the places of the sun and moon, with the distance of the 

 latter from certain fixed stars, for every three hours, three years in advance, has been a 

 national object, contributing to the safety of navigators upon the trackless deep. The 

 same period is also celebrated for the determination of the figure and magnitude of the 

 earth, and for the great improvements made in instruments of observation. If the century 

 opened with lustre derived from the physical demonstrations of Newton, it closed mag 

 nificently with the telescopic discoveries of Herschcl, the wonderful resident by the 

 stately battlements of Windsor, by whose mechanical skill and matchless industry new 

 regions were added to our solar system, and views unfolded of the infinity of the firma 

 ment, and the character of its architecture, which eye had not seen or the mind conceived. 



A work specially devoted to the life and labours of Herschel is a desideratum. It is 

 not to the credit of the country, that the men who have headed its physical force upon the 

 field of battle have enjoyed a larger measure of public admiration and gratitude, and 

 found a more speedy chronicle, than those who have enlarged the field of thought, 

 ministered to the intellectual gratification and elevated the mental character of the 

 community. Bradley had lain in his grave 70 years, Newton 104, and Flamstead 

 116, before their memory received its meed of justice from the hands of Rigaud, Brcwster, 

 and Baily ; a slackness to be attributed to the want of a due national estimate of the 

 value of science, rather than to the reluctance of those who were competent to do ample 

 honour to their merits. Herschel still remains without a record of this kind, though the 

 materials for it are abundant, and his claims undoubted. Born at Hanover, the son 

 of a musician in comparatively humble life, but early a resident in England, he appeared 

 first as a professor and teacher of music, but rapidly rose by his own unaided efforts to 

 eminence as an optician and astronomer. Anxious to inspect for himself the sublime 

 revelations of the heavens, but destitute of means to purchase a telescope of sufficient 

 power for his purpose, he resolved to employ some previous knowledge of optics and 

 mechanics in the construction of an instrument. The earliest, a five-foot reflector, was 

 completed in 1774 : but altogether he accomplished the construction of upwards of five 

 hundred specula of various sizes, selecting the best of them for his telescopes. After 

 having established his fame by the discovery of a new planet, and fixed his residence at 

 Slough, under the munificent patronage of George the Third, he completed the giant in 

 strument that attracted travellers from all parts to the spot, and rendered it one of the 

 most remarkable sites of the civilised world. The tube was forty feet long, the speculum four 

 feet in diameter, three inches and a half thick in every part, and weighing nearly two tons. 

 Its space-penetrating power was estimated at 192, that is, it could search into the depths 

 of the firmament 192 times further than the naked eye. We can form no adequate con 

 ception of this extent, but only feebly approximate to it. Sirius, the brightest of the 

 stars, is separated by a scarcely measurable gulf from us. But stars of a far inferior 

 order of brightness are visible to the naked eye. These we may conclude to be bodies 



