I2 4 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



height, is said to have walked through with his 

 umbrella up. The days of these gigantic tubes are 

 past. The career of Herschel's 40-feet was inaugur- 

 ated by a concert held within the tube, just as 

 its end was celebrated half a century afterwards. 

 " ' God save the King ' was sung in it by the whole 

 company, who got up from dinner, and went into 

 the tube, among the rest two Misses Stow, the one a 

 famous pianoforte player, some of the Griesbachs, who 

 accompanied on the oboe, or any instrument they 

 could get hold of, and I," Caroline in her ninetieth 

 year continues, " you will easily imagine, was one of 

 the nimblest and foremost to get in and out of the 

 tube. But now ! lack-a-day ! I can hardly cross 

 the room without help." She was then a giddy girl 

 of only thirty-seven ! But when the concert was held 

 in the tube at the end of the great telescope's career, 

 she was in Hanover, never destined again to see the 

 noble work of her " best and dearest of brothers." 



On the return of Sir John Herschel from South 

 Africa in 1838, it was found that the woodwork of 

 the great telescope was so decayed that the structure 

 was dangerous. It had stood exposed to wind and 

 weather for more than fifty years, and the discovery 

 of its unsafe condition was made on the centenary of 

 the builder's birth. In the following year it was taken 

 down, and on New Year's Eve 1 a meeting of the 

 Herschel family was held within the iron tube, then 

 lowered on the ground, to celebrate the end of the 

 instrument. Sir John's ballad was sung that night, 

 and is now preserved as a printed broadside among 



1 Said in the Memoirs to have been at Christmas (p. 310). Different 

 in Arago, Biographies, 171. 



