TO MISS HERSCHEL.
I pass my time between Greenwich and London agreeably enough, but am rather at a loss for work that I like. Company is not always pleasing, and I would much rather be polishing a speculum. Last Friday I was at the King's concert to hear George play. The King spoke to me as soon as he saw me, and kept me in conversation for half an hour. He asked George to play a solo-concerto on purpose that I might hear him; and George plays extremely well, is very much improved, and the King likes him very much. These two last nights I have been star-gazing at Greenwich with Dr. Maskelyne and Mr. Aubert. We have compared our telescopes together, and mine was found very superior to any of the Royal Observatory. Double stars which they could not see with their instruments I had the pleasure to show them very plainly, and my mechanism is so much approved of that Dr. Maskelyne has already ordered a model to be taken from mine and a stand to be made by it to his reflector. He is, however, now so much out of love with his instrument that he begins to doubt whether it deserves a new stand. I have had the influenza, but am now quite well again. It lasted only five or six days, and I never was confined with it. . . There is hardly one single person here but what has had it.
I am introduced to the best company. To-morrow I dine at Lord Palmerston's, next day with Sir Joseph Banks, &c., &c. Among opticians and astronomers nothing now is talked of but what they call my great discoveries. Alas! this shows how far they are behind, when such trifles as I have seen and done are called great. Let me but get at it again! I will make such telescopes, and see such things—that is, I will endeavour to do so.