e now propose to furnish a brief sketch of the life of Sir John Frederick William Herschel, the only son of Sir William, and not less illustrious as a man of science.
He was born at Slough, in the year 1792. Evincing considerable talents at a very early age, he received a careful private education under Mr. Rogers, a Scottish mathematician of distinguished merit; and afterwards was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, always famous as a nursery of mathematical and scientific prodigies! Here he pursued his studies with remarkable success, suffering no obstacles to daunt him, and wasting no opportunities of improvement. His fellow-collegians regarded him as one who would add to the high repute of the college, and rejoiced at the brilliant ease with which he passed every examination. In 1813 he took his degree of B.A., and consummated a long series of successes by becoming "senior wrangler," and "Smith's prizeman;" these being the two highest distinctions to which a Cambridge scholar can attain.
In the same year, when he was hardly twenty-one, he published a work entitled, "A Collection of Examples of the Application of the Calculus to Finite Differences." To our young readers such a title will convey no meaning; and we refer to it here only to illustrate the industry and careful thought of the young student, which had rendered possible such a result.
Returning to Slough, he continued his studies in mathematics, chemistry, and natural philosophy, and in various publications exhibited that faculty of observation and analyzation, that intelligence and scrupulousness in collecting facts, and that boldness in deducing new inferences from them, which were characteristic of his illustrious father. The subjects he took up were so abstruse, that we could not hope to make our readers understand what he accomplished, or how far he excelled his predecessors in his grasp and comprehension of them. For instance: if we tell them that in 1820 he wrote a paper "On the Theory and Summation of Series;" communicated to the Cambridge Philosophical Society his discovery that the two kinds of rotatory polarization in rock crystal were related to the plagihedral faces of that mineral; and issued an able treatise "On Certain Remarkable Instances of Deviation from Newton's Tints in the Polarized Tints of Uniaxal Crystals,"—they will gain no very distinct idea of the significance or value of these researches. Again: it will not be very intelligible to them to be informed that, in 1822, he communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a paper "On the Absorption of Light by Coloured Media", in which he enunciated a new method of measuring the dispersion of transparent bodies by stopping the green, yellow, and most refrangible red rays, and thus rendering visible the rays situated rigorously at the end of the spectrum. But they will understand that these results could have been attained only by the most assiduous industry and the most unflinching perseverance. And it is on account of this industry and this perseverance that we recommend Herschel as an example to our readers. They may not make the same progress in science, or achieve the same reputation. It is not necessary they should. Humble work is not less honourable, if it be done conscientiously, and with a sincere desire to do the best that it is in our power to do.
An interesting feature in the younger Herschel's character was his loving care for his father's fame. He was ever most anxious that the full measure of his services to science should be recognized and appreciated. Thus, in 1823, he writes to his aunt:—
"I have been long threatening to send you a long letter, but have always been prevented by circumstances and want of leisure from executing my intention. The truth is, I have been so much occupied with astronomy of late, that I have had little time for anything else—the reduction of those double stars, and the necessity it has put me under of looking over the journals, reviews, &c, for information on what has already been done, and in many cases of re-casting up my father's measures, swallows up a great deal of time and labour. But I have the satisfaction of being able to state that our results in most instances confirm and establish my father's views in a remarkable manner. These inquiries have taken me off the republication of his printed papers for the present.
"I think I shall be adding more to his fame by pursuing and verifying his observations than by reprinting them. But I have by no means abandoned the idea. Meanwhile, I am not sorry to hear they are about to be translated into German.... I hope this season to commence a series of observations with the twenty-foot reflector, which is now in fine order. The forty-foot is no longer capable of being used, but I shall suffer it to stand as a monument."
In reference to this famous telescope, we may digress to state that its remains have been carefully preserved.
The metal tube of the instrument, carrying at one end the recently cleaned mirror of four feet ten inches in diameter, has been placed horizontally in the meridian line, on solid piles of masonry, in the midst of the circle where the apparatus used in manoeuvring it was formerly placed. On the 1st of January 1840, Sir John Herschel, his wife, their seven children, and some old family servants, assembled at Slough. Exactly at noon the party walked several times in procession round the instrument; they then entered the gigantic tube, seated themselves on benches previously prepared, and chanted a requiem with English words composed by Sir John Herschel himself. Then issuing from the tube, they ranged themselves around it, while its opening was hermetically sealed.