DR. HERSCHEL AND HIS SISTER.
Sept.-Dr. Herschel is a delightful man; so unassuming with his great knowledge, so willing to dispense it to the ignorant, and so cheerful and easy in his general manners, that were he no genius it would be impossible not to remark him as a pleasing and sensible man. I was equally pleased with his sister, whom I had wished to see very much, for her great celebrity in her brother’s science. She is very little, very gentle, very modest, and very ingenious; and her manners are those of a person unhackneyed and unawed by the world, yet desirous to meet and to return its smiles. I love not the philosophy that braves it. This brother and sister seem gratified with its favour, at the same time that their own pursuit is all-sufficient to them without it.
I inquired of Miss Herschel if she was still comet-hunting, or content now with the moon? The brother answered that he had the charge of the moon, but he left to his sister to sweep the heavens for comets.
Their manner of working together is most ingenious and curious. While he makes his observations without-doors, he has a method of communicating them to his sister so immediately, that she can instantly commit them to paper, with the precise moment in which they are made. By this means he loses not a minute, when there is anything particularly worth observing, by writing it down, but can still proceed, yet still have his accounts and calculations exact. The methods he has contrived to facilitate this commerce I have not the terms to explain, though his simple manner of showing them made me, fully, at the time, comprehend them.
The night, unfortunately, was dark, and I could not see the moon with the famous new telescope. I mean not the great telescope through which I had taken a walk, for that is still incomplete, but another of uncommon powers. I saw Saturn, however, and his satellites, very distinctly, and their appearance was very beautiful.