CAMPBELL'S VISIT TO HERSCHEL 209 



hk.ly thai Napoleon, who wrote to Laplace 

 about his great works, and was on intimate terms with 

 the greatest minds of Prance, would descend to parade 

 knowledge he did not possess, or indulge in a hypocrisy 



writes, "The impression left upon Campbell's mind 

 l>y this conversation appears to have been a littl.- 

 too strong." 



Far more pleasant is the view given by Campbell of 

 the astronomer him** : 1 til Sunday with 



him and his family." he says. "His simpli 



anecdotes, his readiness to explain and 

 make perfectly perspicuous too his own sublime con- 

 ceptions of the universe are indescribably charming. 

 He is seventy -six, but fresh and stout ; and there 

 he sat, nearest the door, at his friend's house, alter- 

 nately smiling at a joke, or contentedly sit tin- 

 at share or notice in the conversation. Any 

 train of conversation he follows implicitly ; anything 

 you ask he labours with a sort of boyish earnestness 

 to explain a great, simple, good old man." Th< 

 impression made on Campbell's mind is summed up 

 in these words: "I really and unfeigned ly felt as 

 had been conversing with a supernatural intelli- 

 gence. . . . After leaving Herschel I felt elevated and 

 ome; and have in writing to you made only 

 this memorandum of some of the most interesting 

 moments of my litV. 



A German writer, who paid a visit to Herschel at 

 _'h a few years afterwards, has left an equally 

 pleasant picture of the astronomer-sage. 



While we were standing by this machine (the 

 great telescope), which we more admired than com- 

 14 



