TITANIA AND OBERON REDISCOVERED 187 



" all the small stars near the planet the 14th, 17th, 

 18th, 24th of January, and the 4th and 5th of 

 February." On the 7th of February he kept one 

 star in view for nine hours, from six in the evening 

 till three next morning. His journal records that he 

 saw it " faithfully attend its primary planet." On the 

 second night after, he was so satisfied of having caught 

 sight of a second moon, that he delineated on paper 

 what he expected to see the following evening. And 

 he saw in the clear heavens what he sketched sixteen 

 or seventeen hundred million of miles away, " The 

 Georgian Planet, attended by two satellites." Oberon 

 and Titania are the fairy names by which they are 

 now known. " I confess," he adds, " that this scene 

 appeared to me with additional beauty, as the little 

 secondary planets seemed to give a dignity to the 

 primary one, which raises it into a more conspicuous 

 situation among the great bodies of our system. For 

 upwards of five hours I saw them go on together, 

 each pursuing its own track." It was the heroic age 

 of astronomical research. A hero there and a hero 

 here were wrestling with difficulties and winning 

 triumphs in the world of stars. They were men of 

 extraordinary skill and unwearied endurance. It was 

 nearly fifty years after their discovery before the fairies, 

 Oberon and Titania, again condescended to show them- 

 selves to a mortal, the son of their discoverer. 1 And 

 it enabled his aunt, then ninety years of age, to write : 

 " These folks would not have called the Herschelian 

 construction useless, if they had seen the struggle, 

 during the years from 1781 to '86, to get a sight of 



1 Holden, Life and Works of W. H., p. 143. But see Caroline's 

 Memoirs, pp. 261, 305. 



