planets were now not infrequent:  but the only one of interest to me is Melpomene, for the following reason.  On 1852 June 24 I lost my most dear, amiable, clever daughter Elizabeth:  she died at Southampton, two days after landing from Madeira.  On that evening Mr Hind discovered the planet; and he requested me to give a name.  I remembered Horace’s ‘Praecipe lugubres cantus, Melpomene,’ and Cowley’s ’I called the buskin’d muse Melpomene and told her what sad story I would write,’ and suggested Melpomene, or Penthos:  Melpomene was adopted.—­The first move about the Deal Time Ball was in a letter from Commander Baldock to the Admiralty, suggesting that a Time Ball, dropped by galvanic current from Greenwich, should be attached to one of the South Foreland Lighthouses.  The Admiralty sent this for my Report.  I went to the place, and I suggested in reply (Nov. 15th) that a better place would be at an old signal station on the chalk downs.  The decisive change from this was made in 1853.—­As the result of my examination and enquiries into the subject of sympathetic clocks, I established 8 sympathetic clocks in the Royal Observatory, one of which outside the entrance gate had a large dial with Shepherd’s name as Patentee.  Exception was taken to this by the solicitor of a Mr Bain who had busied himself about galvanic clocks.  After much correspondence I agreed to remove Shepherd’s name till Bain had legally established his claim.  This however was never done:  and in 1853 Shepherd’s name was restored.—­In Nov. 1851, Denison had consented to join me in the preparation of the Westminster Clock.  In Feb. 1852 we began to have little disagreements.  However on Apr. 6th I was going to Madeira, and requested him to act with full powers from me.—­I communicated to the Royal Society my Paper on the Eclipses of Agathocles, Thales, and Xerxes.—­In the British Association, I had presided at the Ipswich Meeting in 1851, and according to custom I ought to attend at the 1852 Meeting (held at Belfast) to resign my office.  But I was broken in spirit by the death of my daughter, and the thing generally was beyond my willing enterprise.  I requested Sir Roderick Murchison to act generally for me:  which he did, as I understood, very gracefully.—­In this year a proposal was made by the Government for shifting all the Meeting Rooms of the Scientific Societies to Kensington Gore, which was stoutly resisted by all, and was finally abandoned.”

Of private history:  “I was at Playford in January, and went thence to Chester on the enquiry about the tides of the Dee; and made excursions to Halton Castle and to Holyhead.—­From Apr. 8th to May 14th I was on the voyage to and from Madeira, and on a short visit to my wife and daughter there.—­On June 23rd I went to Southampton to meet my wife and daughter just landed from Madeira:  on June 24th my dear daughter Elizabeth died:  she was buried at Playford on June 29th.—­I was at Playford also in July and December.—­From Sept. 16th to 24th I went to Cumberland, via Fleetwood and Peel.”