HE EXAMINES THE HEAVENS. 261 



had never suspected. Herschel is transported with enthu- 

 siasm. He will, without deluy, have a similar instrument 

 but of larger dimensions. The answer from London is 

 delayed for some days : these few days appear as many 

 centuries to him. When the answer arrives, the price 

 that the optician demands proves to be much beyond the 

 pecuniary resources of a mere organist. To any other 

 man this would have been a clap of thunder. This un- 

 expected difficulty on the contrary, inspired Herschel 

 with fresh energy ; he cannot buy a telescope, then he 

 will construct one with his own hands. The musician of 

 the Octagon Chapel rushes immediately into a multitude 

 of experiments, on metallic alloys that reflect, light with 

 the greatest intensity, on the means of giving th para- 

 bolic figure to the mirrors, on the causes that in the 

 operation of polishing affect the regularity of the figure, 

 &c. So rare a degree of perseverance at last receives its 

 reward. In 1774 Herschel has the happiness of being 

 able to examine the heavens with a Newtonian telescope 

 of five English feet focus, entirely made by himself. 

 This success tempts him to undertake still more difficult 

 enterprises. Other telescopes of seven, of eight, of ten, 

 and even of twenty feet focal distance, crown his efforts. 

 As if to answer in advance those critics who would have 

 accused him of a superfluity of apparatus, of unnecessary 

 luxury, in the large size of the new instruments, and his 

 extreme minutiae in their execution, Nature granted to 

 the astronomical musician, on the 13th of March 1781, 

 the unheard-of honour of commencing his career of obser- 

 vation with the discovery of a new planet, situated on the 

 confines of our solar system. Dating from that moment, 

 Herschel's reputation, no longer in his character of 

 musician, but as a constructor of telescopes and as an 



