It has long been the reproach of England that she treats, or rather that her Government treats, her men of science, her artists, and her litterateurs with a disgraceful parsimony. It would appear from the following letter that Sir William Herschel was inadequately rewarded, and that his sister felt this keenly:—
"There can be no harm," she says, "in telling my own dear nephew that I never felt satisfied with the support your father received towards his undertakings, and far less with the ungracious manner in which it was granted. For the last sum came with a message that more must never be asked for. (Oh! how degraded I felt, even for myself, whenever I thought of it!) And after all it came too late, and was not sufficient; for if expenses had been out of question, there would not have been so much time, and labour, and expense, for twenty-four men were at times 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.
Miss Herschel's claims to the gratitude of men of science, and to the admiration of all who can appreciate the beauty of self-sacrifice, did not end here. She was herself an astronomer, and an original observer. At times her brother was enabled to dispense with her attendance. You would suppose that such leisure nights she would gladly give up to rest. Not she. Her brother might, at some unforeseen moment, require her aid, and consequently she preferred to be close at hand. A seven-foot telescope planted on the lawn helped to while away the hours of waiting; and it was to the occupation of these hours that science owed the discovery of the comet of 1786, of the comet of 1788, of the comet of 1791, of the comet of 1793, and of that of 1795, now connected with the name of Encke. Many, also, of the nebulae contained in Sir William Herschel's catalogues were detected by her keen and accurate gaze during these nights of lonely observation. Indeed, as South remarked, when looking at the joint-labours of these two enthusiasts, we scarcely know whether the warmer praise should be given to the intellectual might of the brother or the ardent industry of the sister.
In 1797, continued her eulogist, she presented to the Royal Society a catalogue of 560 stars, taken from Flamsteed's observations, the exact positions of which had not been previously defined.