FAIRY PRINCE; SLEEPING PRINCESS 255 



feel the same doubts about the authorship, that critics 

 generally feel about the authorship of the last chapter 

 of the Book of Deuteronomy, in which Moses is com- 

 monly supposed to have recorded his own death and 

 funeral. And thus closes the wonderful story of William 

 Herschel and his sister Caroline, the story of the fairy 

 prince of science coming to the sleeping princess of the 

 heavens to awake her and all her company from the 

 sleep of ages on the one hand, and, on the other, the 

 story of the despised household drudge, Cinderella, 

 taking a place, a deserved place, among the laurelled 

 benefactors of humanity. Future ages are certain to 

 witness many histories of men and women, of fairy 

 princes and ragged Cinderellas, uniting perseverance 

 to genius, prosaic detail to lofty imaginings. Other 

 women since her time have shrined their names as 

 worthy travellers among the stars ; but, while they may 

 never eclipse the brightness of the sunshine I have 

 endeavoured to picture in this little book, Encke's 

 homage will be echoed by all time "A lady whose 

 name is so intimately connected with the most brilliant 

 astronomical discoveries of the age, and whose claims 

 to the gratitude of every astronomer will be as con- 

 spicuous as her own exertions for extending the 

 boundaries of our knowledge, and for assisting to 

 develop the discoveries by which the name of her 

 great brother has been rendered so famous throughout 

 the literary world." 



