A WALK THROUGH THE TUBE 123 



Slough. He did not even get a knighthood from his 

 Royal patron. In 1816 he was made a Hanoverian 

 Knight by the Prince Regent; traders, slave-holders, 

 moneyed men of all classes were raised to the peerage, 

 but brain power was then less esteemed for the bestowal 

 of worldly rank. 



Before the tube was fitted with the great mirror, 

 many of the visitors who flocked to see William 

 Herschel had the curiosity to walk through it. 

 Among them was the King. Close behind him was 

 the Archbishop of Canterbury, who found it difficult 

 to proceed, till the King turned to give him his hand, 

 saying, " Come, my Lord Bishop, I will show you the 

 way to heaven." 



An invitation from Mr. Herschel to walk through 

 the tube, as it lay on the ground, was not uncommon. 

 Miss Burney and the party she was with accepted the 

 invitation. " It held me quite upright," she says, ' ' and 

 without the least inconvenience; so would it have 

 done had I been dressed in feathers and a bell hoop 

 such is its circumference. Mr. Smelt led the way, 

 walking also upright ; and my father followed. After 

 we were gone, the Bishop [of Worcester] and Dr. 

 Douglas were tempted, for its oddity, to make the 

 same promenade." 1 Evidently the Church was not 

 disposed, in those days at least, to look Heaven in the 

 face. 



While the greater tube of Lord Rosse's telescope 

 was lying in readiness to receive its greater mirror, 

 visitors were also in the habit of walking through 

 it, sixty years later. The Dean of Ely, a well-known 

 mathematician, and a man of more than the common 

 1 Letters, iii. 262. 



