"A series of observations on Venus, begun by me in April, 1777, has been continued down to the present time. . . . The result of my observations would have been communicated long ago if I had not flattered myself with the hope of some better success concerning the diurnal motion of Venus, which has still eluded my constant attention as far as concerns its period and direction. . . . Even at this present time I should hesitate to give the following extracts if it did not seem incumbent on me to examine by what accident I came to overlook mountains in this planet of such enormous height as to exceed four, five, or even six times the perpendicular height of Chimboraço, the highest of our mountains. . . . The same paper contains other particulars concerning Venus and Saturn. All of which being things of which I have never taken any notice, it will not be amiss to show, by what follows, that neither want of attention, nor a deficiency of instruments, would occasion my not perceiving these mountains of more than twenty-three miles in height, this jagged border of Venus, and these flat, spherical forms on Saturn."
The reply of Schroeter (1795) is temperate and just. It does him honor, and he generously gives full justice to his critic.
It would hardly be worth while to mention this slight incident if it were not that during these years there certainly existed a feeling that Herschel undervalued the labors of his cotemporaries.
This impression was fostered no doubt by his general habit of not quoting previous authorities in the fields which he was working.
A careful reading of his papers will, I think, show that his definite indebtedness to his cotemporaries was vanishingly small. The work of Michell and Wilson he alludes to again and again, and always with appreciation. Certainly he seems to show a vein of annoyance that the papers of Christian Mayer, De novis in cœlo sidereo phænomenis (1779), and Beobachtungen von Fixsterntrabanten (1778), should have been quoted to prove that the method proposed by Herschel in 1782 for ascertaining the parallax of the fixed stars by means of observations of those which were double, was not entirely original with himself.
There is direct proof that it was so,[22] and if this was not forthcoming it would be unnecessary, as he has amply shown in his Catalogue of Double Stars. One is reminded of his remarks on the use of the high magnifying powers by the impatience of his comments.
His proposal to call the newly discovered minor planets asteroids (1802) was received as a sign that he wished to discriminate between the discoveries of Piazzi and Olbers and his own discovery of Uranus.[23]
He takes pains to quietly put this on one side in one of his papers, showing that he was cognizant of the existence of such a feeling.
I am tempted to resurrect from a deserved obscurity a notice of Herschel's Observations on the Two Lately Discovered Celestial Bodies [23] (Philosophical Transactions, 1802), printed in the first volume of the Edinburgh Review, simply to show the kind of envy to which even he, the glory of England, was subject.
The reviewer sets forth the principal results of Herschel's observations, and, after quoting his definition of the new term asteroid, goes on to say: