73 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



While we are satisfied that th< i. is no ground for 

 finding fault with Hersch r tin n< -\v planet 



he discovered, we are more sati.slii d that, by the mouth 

 of Bode, tin- jury, to whom he required i ; ! 

 disallowed the flatt.-ry. and called thr plain-t I'l-amix 

 not even Hcrschcl, as Lalande proposed. The next 

 planet that was discovered, the first of the asteroids, 

 was named by its discoverer Certs Ferdinandea 

 after a contemptible Kin;; of Naples, but Ceres has 

 long since swallowed Ferdinandea up. Even at tin 

 time an amused cynicism, speaking in (he Letters 

 * i Horace Walpole, was say in- Must not that host 

 of worlds be christened? Mr. Herschel himself has 

 stood godfather for His Majesty to the ne\\ Sid us. 

 Majesty has a numerous issue ; but they and all 

 the princes and princesses in Europe cannot supply 

 appellations enough for twenty millions of new-born 

 stars." 1 



In the year 1782 Herschel not only continued to 

 prosecute the studies he had begun, but ventured into 

 new and almost untrodden fields of research. Two or 

 three months were cut out of the working time of that 

 year by a summons to Windsor to see the King and 

 hear what he might do for him. But his activity and 

 enjoyment in work made up for lost time. In 1780 he 

 contributed two papers, or twenty-five large pages, to 

 the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society ; 

 in 1781 he contributed two papers, or thirty-five pages ; 

 and in 1782, notwithstanding the loss of two months, 

 four papers, or nearly one hundred pages a good 

 year's scientific work for any man, more especially for 

 one who was giving thirty or even thirty-eight music 

 1 Letters, vi. 259. 



