by turns, day and night, at work, wasted on the first mirror, which had come out too light in the casting (Alex more than once would have destroyed it secretly, if I had not persuaded him against it); and without two mirrors, you know, such an instrument cannot be always ready for observing.

“But what grieved me most was that to the last your poor father was struggling above his strength against difficulties which he well knew might have been removed if it had not been attended with too much expense.  The last time the mirror was obliged to be taken from the polisher on account of some obstacle, I heard him say (in his usual manner of thinking aloud on such occasions), ’It is impossible to make the machine act as required without a room three times as large as this.’

“I must say a few words of apology for the good King (George III.), and ascribe the close bargains which were made between him and my brother to the shabby, mean-spirited advisers who were undoubtedly consulted on such occasions; but they are dead and gone, and no more of them.”

In February 1828, the great services which this high-souled woman had rendered to astronomical science were fitly rewarded by the presentation to her of the Royal Astronomical Society’s gold medal,—­the greatest honour which an astronomer can receive.

Mr. South, himself an astronomer of deserved repute, was charged with the duty of presenting the medal; and in the course of his address he dwelt on the labours of her brother, and the share she had had in them.

Sir William’s first catalogue of new nebulae and clusters of stars, he said, amounting in number to one thousand, was compiled with observations made from a twenty-foot reflector in the years 1783, 1784, and 1785.  By the same instrument he was enabled to discover the positions of a second thousand of these distant worlds in 1785 to 1788; while the places of five hundred others were registered on the celestial map between 1788 and 1802.  What, we may ask, were the discoveries of Columbus compared with these?  He revealed to Europe the existence of only a single continent; Herschel unfolded to man the mysteries of the depths of the heavens.

But, continued Mr. South, when we have thus enumerated the results obtained in the course of “sweeps” with this instrument, and taken into consideration the extent and variety of the other observations which were at the same time in progress, a most important part yet remains untold.  Who participated in his toils?  Who braved with him all the experiences of inclement weather?  Who shared, and consoled him in, his privations?  A woman.  And who was she?  His sister.  Miss Herschel it was who by night acted as his amanuensis; she it was whose pen conveyed to paper his observations as they issued from his lips; she it was who noted the various aspects and phenomena of the objects observed; she it was who, after spending the still night beside the wonder-exhibiting instrument, carried the rough, blurred manuscripts to her cottage at daybreak, and by the morning produced a clean copy and register of the night’s achievements; she it was who planned the labour of each succeeding night; she it was who reduced into exact form every calculation; she it was who arranged the whole in systematic order; and she it was who largely assisted her illustrious brother to obtain his imperishable renown.