In her last days, she was not idle. She had known the pleasures of science, and been thrilled as she heard her illustrious brother detail the steps by which he had made his discoveries,—had actually stood by the great philosopher as he fixed his delighted and reverent eye on the stupendous wonders of the firmament so thickly and Divinely studded with worlds, and seen him lay the deep and broad foundations of his imperishable fame; and had been stimulated to seek like noble rewards, by a diligent and irreproachable use of her own fine natural talents. As a woman of intellectual height and strength, and with a field of inexhaustible material over which to expatiate, she laboured with corresponding success; laid open the secrets of nature, and explained her deeper mysteries; enlarged the domain of knowledge; awakened the spirit of inquiry; breathed fresh life into philosophy, and gave to the world the promise of ever-accumulating truth. Her favourite study we hesitate not to place first. No science “so perfectly illustrates the gradual growth and development of human genius, as Astronomy: the movement of the mind has been constantly onward; its highest energies have ever been called into requisition; and there never has been a time when Astronomy did not present problems, not only equal to all that man could do, but passing beyond the limits of his greatest intellectual vigour; and hence in all ages and countries, the absolute strength of human genius may be measured by its reach to unfold the mysteries of the stars.”
On the 16th of March, 1847, the press announced that Miss Herschel had celebrated the ninety-seventh anniversary of her birthday. A letter from Hanover informs us that the king on that occasion, “sent to compliment her; the prince and princess royal paid her a visit, and the latter presented her with a magnificent arm-chair, the back of which had been embroidered by her royal highness; and the minister of Prussia, in the name of his sovereign, remitted to her the gold medal awarded for the extension of the sciences.” The labours of Miss Herschel had shed a glory over her country, and the trump of fame now gave her name to the world as a woman of unrivalled attainments. Governments are slow to learn; and certainly they are not the first to appreciate the fruits of genius. The liberal expenditure of the national means for the advancement of science, would shed real glory over every country and every age; and it therefore reflects infinite honour on these German sovereigns, that they took her under their immediate and special patronage. There are truths yet to be searched out and declared, which shall equal, it may be surpass, the most stupendous announcements which have yet been made. Surely “such truths are things quite as worthy of struggles and sacrifices as many of the objects for which nations contend and exhaust their physical and moral energies and resources: they are gems of real and durable glory in the diadems of princes; conquests which, while they leave no tears behind them, continue for ever inalienable.”
Soon after the event referred to, her distinguished nephew, Sir John F. W. Herschel, wrote a letter to the Athenæum, in which he stated that notwithstanding her advanced age and bodily infirmities, Miss Herschel was still in the possession of all her faculties.
But although she was not called to die when she had just begun to live, nor to quit her investigations for ever when she had just begun to learn how to study; the hour of her departure was at hand. Gold cannot bribe death. Human power and grandeur cannot save from the grave. Genius cannot elude the king of terrors. The rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, the wise and the foolish, meet together here:—
“Their golden cordials cannot ease
Their painèd hearts or aching heads;
Nor fright nor bribe approaching death
From glittering roofs and downy beds.
The lingering, the unwilling soul,
The dismal summons must obey;