216 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



ment of the wicked, it does not appear that they had 

 any other foundation for their assertions than mere 

 opinion and vague surmise; but now I think my- 

 self authorized, upon astronomical principles, to 

 propose the sun as an inhabitable world, and am 

 persuaded that the foregoing observations, with the 

 conclusions I have drawn from them, are fully 

 sufficient to answer every objection that may be 

 made against it." 



A man who filled the world with his renown as 

 Herschel did, and who charmed all who happened to 

 meet him as we know he charmed Miss Burney, 

 Thomas Campbell, and Niemeyer, could not have been 

 expected to leave this life without worthy commemora- 

 tion from a poet's pen. Dr. Burney's Herscheliad 

 was never published ; Campbell preserved silence 

 except in poetic prose, written while the astronomer 

 was still living ; and no one seems to have addressed 

 himself to what was almost a duty of the age, except a 

 writer, who hailed from Teversal Rectory, and was 

 unable to force Uranus with its proper quantity into a 

 line of poetry. 1 



" Herschel, alas, great astronomic sage, 

 Has sunk in death, yet full of honoured age, 

 Through widest space the heavenly orbs he viewed, 

 The comet's track, and stars unnumbered shewed ; 

 Ouranus first he saw, with all its train, 

 And fires volcanic found in Luna's plain." 



The Herscheliad could scarcely have contained poorer 

 or more unworthy lines. 



Far more worthy of record is the eulogium passed 

 by Arago : " We may confidently assert, relative to the 



1 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xcii. (1822). 



