NAMING OF THE NEW PLANET 75 



" By addressing this letter to you, Sir, as President 

 of the Royal Society, I take the most effectual method 

 of communicating that name to the Literati of Europe 

 which I hope they will receive with pleasure. I have 

 the honour to be, with the greatest respect, etc., 



"W. HERSCHEL." 



When Herschel discovered the planet Uranus he had 

 received no favour and no bounty from King or 

 people. Nor did the King extend his patronage to 

 him till fifteen months had elapsed. Galileo was in 

 receipt of a handsome allowance from the Grand Duke 

 of Tuscany, when he discovered the satellites of Jupiter, 

 and called them the Medicean Stars. It was not only 

 pardonable to do this ; it was most natural. But science 

 refused to endorse the flattery : and scientific men, 

 especially on the Continent, were equally unwilling to 

 accept the name proposed by Herschel for the newly 

 discovered planet. For many years it continued to be 

 called the Georgian Star, or the Georgium Sidus, in this 

 country, though not without strong protests. While 

 scientific men in Britain allowed that "George the 

 Third has many titles to be remembered by the friends 

 of science, to which few of his contemporaries have 

 any pretensions," they maintained, " We shall therefore 

 do well to anticipate the decision of posterity, by at 

 once adopting a term that must ultimately prevail." 

 No one thinks of perpetuating the name Georgian now. 

 Uranus has displaced it, and justly. The judgment of 

 posterity has gone against the name proposed by the 

 discoverer and that of Herschel, generously proposed 

 by Lalande. Heathenism and antiquity have carried 

 the day. Everyone must decide for himself whether 



