III
CAROLINE HERSCHEL
"As when by night the glass
Of Galileo less assured observes
Imagined lands and regions in the moon."—Paradise Lost.
Every one knows the fame of Sir William Herschel, the first distinguished astronomer of that name, the builder and designer of the forty-foot telescope, and the discoverer of the planet, called after George III., Georgium Sidus. Hardly less well known is the name of his sister, Caroline Herschel, who was her brother's constant helper for fifty years. She was the discoverer of eight comets; she received, for her distinguished services to science, the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, and the gold medal conferred annually by the King of Prussia for science; she was also made an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society and of the Royal Irish Academy, and received many other public marks of appreciation of the value of her astronomical labours. Few women have done as much as she for the promotion of science, and few have been more genuinely humble in their estimate of their own attainments. Nothing made her more angry than any praise which appeared, even in the slightest degree, to detract from the reputation of her brother; over and over again she asserted that she was nothing more than a tool which he had taken the trouble to sharpen. One of her
