[20] Bode's Jahrbuch, 1788, p. 161.
[21] Through Sir John Herschel there is preserved to us an incident of his early boyhood, which shows the nature of the training his young mind received in the household at Slough.
Walking with his father, he asked him "What was the oldest of all things?" The father replied, after the Socratic manner, "And what do you suppose is the oldest of all things?" The boy was not successful in his answers, whereon the old astronomer took up a small stone from the garden walk: "There, my child, there is the oldest of all the things that I certainly know." On another occasion the father asked his son, "What sort of things do you think are most alike?" The boy replied, "The leaves of the same tree are most like each other." "Gather, then, a handful of leaves from that tree," rejoined the philosopher, "and choose two which are alike."—Monthly Notices Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxxii., page 123.
[22] Memoir of Caroline Herschel, p. 42.
[23] "Of late years these expectations have been more than accomplished by the discovery of no fewer than four planetary bodies, almost all in the same place; but so small that Dr. Herschel refuses to honor them with the name of planets, and chooses to call them asteroids, though for what reason it is not easy to determine, unless it be to deprive the discoverers of these bodies of any pretence for rating themselves as high in the list of astronomical discoverers as himself."—History of the Royal Society, by Thomas Thomson, p. 358. This work was published in 1812, and therefore during the lifetime of Herschel.
[24] Poetical History of Astronomy: this work was nearly completed, but was never published. The whole of it was read to Herschel, in order that Burney might have the benefit of his criticism on its technical terms.
[25] Memoirs of Dr. Burney, vol. iii., p. 264.
[26] Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell, edited by William Beattie, vol. ii., p. 234.
[27] This interview must have taken place in 1802, during Herschel's journey to Paris. We have no other record of it.
[28] The will of HERSCHEL was dated December 17th, 1818.