Between 4th and 11th May, 1827.
My dear Aunt,—
I received yesterday your packet by Mr. Goltermann, containing the ten copies of the first vol. of Pfaff’s translation of my father’s works—with the plates, which are really abominable. However, there is no help for it. I shall destroy those of the Nebulæ. A much more interesting part of its contents is your account of your own history, for which I cannot enough thank you, and it is really one of the most precious documents you could have sent me; every line of it affected me deeply. The point of view in which it places my father’s character is truly noble. You underrate both the value and the merit of your own services in his cause, but the world does you more justice, and his son feels them a great deal more than he knows how to express. I shall preserve this as the most precious thing, and you will add to the obligation you have conferred on me by sending the papers you refer to under the title of No. I.
The Journals and the mettwursts also came safely; the Journals contain some very curious matter not known in England, and which comes very opportunely here, where, I am sorry to say, science is going to sleep.
I have just completed a second Catalogue of double stars, which will be read at the Astronomical Society (of which I now have the honour to be President) on Friday (May 11th) next (if I can get it fairly copied in time). My work in the Review of Nebulæ advances slowly, as I can very seldom get a night or two at proper times of the moon and year to sweep. But I find your Catalogue most useful. I always draw out from it a regular working list for the night’s sweep, and by that means have often been able to take as many as thirty or forty nebulæ in a sweep. I have now secured such a degree of precision in taking the places of objects in the telescope, that the settling stars (which I prepare a list of each night and arrange them in order of R. A. in the working list) cross the wire often on the very beat of the chronometer when they were expected, and not unusually enter the field of view bisected by the horizontal wire of the eye-piece. In short, I reckon my average error in R. A. in determining the place of a new object by a single observation, not to exceed one second of time, and in Polar distance a quarter of a minute. This you will easily perceive to be a considerable improvement in respect of precision, which is more my aim than it was my father’s, whose object was only discovery. I have found a great many nebulæ not in your Catalogue, and which, therefore, I suppose are new. But I won’t plague you any more with this at present.
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Believe me, dear Aunt,
Your affectionate Nephew,
J. F. W. H.
1827. Her English Bed.