



Produced by Bryan Ness, Eric Hutton and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)









SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL

HIS LIFE AND WORKS




[Illustration: Sir William Herschel]

SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL


HIS LIFE AND WORKS

BY

EDWARD S. HOLDEN

UNITED STATES NAVAL OBSERVATORY, WASHINGTON

[Illustration: Coelis Exploratis]



NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
743 AND 745 BROADWAY
1881



COPYRIGHT, 1880,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.



PRESS OF J. J. LITTLE & CO.,

NOS. 10 TO 20 ASTOR PLACE, NEW YORK.




Please see the end of the text for TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES




PREFACE.


In the following account of the life and works of Sir WILLIAM HERSCHEL,
I have been obliged to depend strictly upon data already in print--the
_Memoir_ of his sister, his own scientific writings and the memoirs and
diaries of his cotemporaries. The review of his published works will, I
trust, be of use. It is based upon a careful study of all his papers in
the _Philosophical Transactions_ and elsewhere.

A life of HERSCHEL which shall be satisfactory in every particular can
only be written after a full examination of the materials which are
preserved at the family seat in England; but as two generations have
passed since his death, and as no biography yet exists which approaches
to completeness, no apology seems to me to be needed for a
conscientious attempt to make the best use of the scanty material which
we do possess.

This study will, I trust, serve to exhibit so much of his life as
belongs to the whole public. His private life belongs to his family,
until the time is come to let the world know more of the greatest of
practical astronomers and of the inner life of one of its most profound
philosophers,--of a great and ardent mind, whose achievements are and
will remain the glory of England.




CONTENTS.

                                                  PAGE
CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS; 1738-1772,                              1


CHAPTER II.

LIFE IN BATH; 1772-1782,                            33


CHAPTER III.

LIFE AT DATCHET, CLAY HALL, AND SLOUGH; 1782-1822,  68


CHAPTER IV.

REVIEW OF THE SCIENTIFIC LABORS OF HERSCHEL,       118


BIBLIOGRAPHY,                                      215


INDEX OF NAMES,                                    235




LIFE AND WORKS

OF

WILLIAM HERSCHEL.




CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS; 1738-1772.


Of the great modern philosophers, that one of whom least is known, is
WILLIAM HERSCHEL. We may appropriate the words which escaped him when
the barren region of the sky near the body of _Scorpio_ was passing
slowly through the field of his great reflector, during one of his
sweeps, to express our own sense of absence of light and knowledge:
_Hier ist wahrhaftig ein Loch im Himmel._

HERSCHEL prepared, about the year 1818, a biographical memorandum, which
his sister CAROLINA placed among his papers.

This has never been made public. The only thoroughly authentic sources
of information in possession of the world, are a letter written by
HERSCHEL himself, in answer to a pressing request for a sketch of his
life, and the _Memoir and Correspondence of CAROLINE HERSCHEL_ (London,
1876), a precious memorial not only of his life, but of one which
otherwise would have remained almost unknown, and one, too, which the
world could ill afford to lose. The latter, which has been ably edited
by Mrs. MARY CORNWALLIS HERSCHEL,[1] is the only source of knowledge in
regard to the early years of the great astronomer, and together with the
all too scanty materials to be gained from a diligent search through the
biography of the time, affords the data for those personal details of
his life, habits, and character, which seem to complete the distinct,
though partial conception of him which the student of his philosophical
writings acquires.

The letter referred to was published in the Goettingen Magazine of
Science and Literature, III., 4, shortly after the name of HERSCHEL had
become familiar to every ear through his discovery of _Uranus_, but
while the circumstances of the discovery, and the condition of the
amateur who made it, were still entirely unknown.

The editor (LICHTENBERG) says:

    "Herr HERSCHEL was good enough to send me, some time since, through
    Herr MAGELLAN, copies of his Dissertations on Double Stars, on the
    Parallax of the Fixed Stars, and on a new Micrometer. In the letter
    which conveyed to him my thanks for his gift, I requested him to
    note down a few facts in regard to his life, for publication in this
    magazine, since various accounts, more or less incorrect, had
    appeared in several journals. In answer, I received a very obliging
    letter from him and what follows is that portion of it relating to
    my request, which was sent me with full permission to make it
    public."


                                                "DATCHET, NEAR WINDSOR,
                                                _Nov. 15, 1783._

    "I was born in Hanover, November, 1738. My father, who was a
    musician, destined me to the same profession, hence I was
    instructed betimes in his art. That I might acquire a perfect
    knowledge of the theory as well as of the practice of music, I was
    set at an early age to study mathematics in all its
    branches--algebra, conic sections, infinitesimal analysis, and the
    rest.

    "The insatiable desire for knowledge thus awakened resulted next in
    a course of languages; I learned French, English, and Latin, and
    steadfastly resolved henceforth to devote myself wholly to those
    sciences from the pursuit of which I alone looked for all my future
    happiness and enjoyment. I have never been either necessitated or
    disposed to alter this resolve. My father, whose means were limited,
    and who consequently could not be as liberal to his children as he
    would have desired, was compelled to dispose of them in one way or
    another at an early age; consequently in my fifteenth year I
    enlisted in military service, only remaining in the army, however,
    until I reached my nineteenth year, when I resigned and went over to
    England.

    "My familiarity with the organ, which I had carefully mastered
    previously, soon procured for me the position of organist in
    Yorkshire, which I finally exchanged for a similar situation at Bath
    in 1766, and while here the peculiar circumstances of my post, as
    agreeable as it was lucrative, made it possible for me to occupy
    myself once more with my studies, especially with mathematics. When,
    in the course of time, I took up astronomy, I determined to accept
    nothing on faith, but to see with my own eyes everything which
    others had seen before me. Having already some knowledge of the
    science of optics, I resolved to manufacture my own telescopes, and
    after many continuous, determined trials, I finally succeeded in
    completing a so-called Newtonian instrument, seven feet in length.
    From this I advanced to one of ten feet, and at last to one of
    twenty, for I had fully made up my mind to carry on the improvement
    of my telescopes as far as it could possibly be done. When I had
    carefully and thoroughly perfected the great instrument in all its
    parts, I made systematic use of it in my observations of the
    heavens, first forming a determination never to pass by any, the
    smallest, portion of them without due investigation. This habit,
    persisted in, led to the discovery of the new planet (_Georgium
    Sidus_). This was by no means the result of chance, but a simple
    consequence of the position of the planet on that particular
    evening, since it occupied precisely that spot in the heavens which
    came in the order of the minute observations that I had previously
    mapped out for myself. Had I not seen it just when I did, I must
    inevitably have come upon it soon after, since my telescope was so
    perfect that I was able to distinguish it from a fixed star in the
    first minute of observation.

    "Now to bring this sketch to a close. As the king had expressed a
    desire to see my telescope, I took it by his command to Greenwich,
    where it was compared with the instruments of my excellent friend,
    Dr. MASKELYNE, not only by himself, but by other experts, who
    pronounced it as their opinion that my instrument was superior to
    all the rest. Thereupon the king ordered that the instrument be
    brought to Windsor, and since it there met with marked approval, his
    majesty graciously awarded me a yearly pension, that I might be
    enabled to relinquish my profession of music, and devote my whole
    time to astronomy and the improvement of the telescope. Gratitude,
    as well as other considerations specified by me in a paper presented
    to the Royal Society, of which I am a member, has induced me to call
    the new planet _Georgium Sidus_.

        "'Georgium Sidus.--jam nunc assuesce vocari.'--(_Virgil._)

    And I hope it will retain the name."

We know but little of the family of HERSCHEL. The name is undoubtedly
Jewish, and is found in Poland, Germany, and England. We learn that the
ancestors of the present branch left Moravia about the beginning of the
XVIIth century, on account of their change of religion to Protestantism.
They became possessors of land in Saxony. HANS HERSCHEL, the
great-grandfather of WILLIAM, was a brewer in Pirna (a small town near
Dresden). Of the two sons of HANS, one, ABRAHAM (born in 1651, died
1718), was employed in the royal gardens at Dresden, and seems to have
been a man of taste and skill in his calling. Of his eldest son,
EUSEBIUS, there appears to be little trace in the records of the family.
The second son, BENJAMIN, died in infancy; the third, ISAAC, was born in
1707 (Jan. 14), and was thus an orphan at eleven years of age. ISAAC was
the father of the great astronomer.

He appears to have early had a passionate fondness for music, and this,
added to a distaste for his father's calling, determined his career. He
was taught music by an oboe-player in the royal band, and he also
learned the violin. At the age of twenty-one he studied music for a year
under the Cappelmeister PABRICH, at Potsdam, and in August, 1731, he
became oboist in the band of the Guards, at Hanover. In August, 1732, he
married ANNA ILSE MORITZEN. She appears to have been a careful and busy
wife and mother, possessed of no special faculties which would lead us
to attribute to her care any great part of the abilities of her son.
She could not herself write the letters which she sent to her husband
during his absences with his regiment. It was her firm belief that the
separations and some of the sorrows of the family came from too much
learning; and