SIR U'J/. AND CAROLINE HERSCHEL. 83 



so happy to see them so happy. But generally 

 their conversation would branch out on philo- 

 sophical subjects, when my brother William and 

 my father often argued with such warmth that my 

 mother's interference became necessary ; when the 

 names Leibnitz, Newton, and Euler sounded rather 

 too loud for the repose of her little ones, who ought 

 to be in school by seven in the morning. But it 

 seems that on the brothers retiring to their own 

 room, where they shared the same bed, my brother 

 William had still a great deal to say; and fre- 

 quently it happened that when he stopped for an 

 assent or reply, he found his hearer was gone to 

 sleep, and I suppose it was not till then that he 

 bethought himself to do the same. 



" The recollection of these happy scenes confirms 

 me in the belief, that had my brother William not 

 then been interrupted in his philosophical pursuits, 

 we should have had much earlier proofs of his 

 inventive genius. My father was a great admirer 

 of astronomy, and had some knowledge of that 

 science ; for I remember his taking me, on a clear 

 frosty night, into the street, to make me acquainted 

 with several of the most beautiful constellations, 

 after we had been gazing at a comet which was 

 then visible. And I well remember with what de- 

 light he used to assist my brother William in his 

 various contrivances in the pursuit of his philo- 

 sophical studies, among which was a neatly turned 

 four-inch globe, upon which the equator and eclip- 

 tic were engraved by my brother." 



