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of William Herschel.
57
was engaged in a long conversation, which to me sounded like quarrelling, and the first words my brother said after he was gone were: 'That is a devil of a fellow.' ...
"I suppose their names were often not known, or were forgotten; for it was not till the year 1782 or 1783 that a memorandum of the names of visitors was thought of." ... "My brother now applied himself to perfect his mirrors, erecting in his garden a stand for his twenty-foot telescope; many trials were necessary before the required motions for such an unwieldy machine could be contrived. Many attempts were made by way of experiment before an intended thirty-foot telescope could be completed, for which, between whiles (not interrupting the observations with seven, ten, and twenty-foot, and writing papers for both the Royal and Bath Philosophical Societies), gauges, shapes, weight, etc., of the mirror were calculated, and trials of the composition of the metal were made. In short, I saw nothing else and heard nothing else talked of but these things when my brothers were together. Alex, was always very alert, assisting when anything new was going forward, but he wanted perseverance, and never liked to confine himself at home for many hours together. And so it happened that my brother William was obliged to make trial of my abilities in copying for him catalogues, tables, etc., and sometimes whole papers which were lent him for his perusal. Among them was one by Mr. Michell and a catalogue of Christian Mayer, in Latin, which kept me employed when my brother was at the3*
