"all the small stars near the planet the 14th, 17th, 18th, 24th of January, and the 4th and 5th of February." On the 7th of February he kept one star in view for nine hours, from six in the evening till three next morning. His journal records that he saw it "faithfully attend its primary planet." On the second night after, he was so satisfied of having caught sight of a second moon, that he delineated on paper what he expected to see the following evening. And he saw in the clear heavens what he sketched sixteen or seventeen hundred million of miles away, "The Georgian Planet, attended by two satellites." Oberon and Titania are the fairy names by which they are now known. "I confess," he adds, "that this scene appeared to me with additional beauty, as the little secondary planets seemed to give a dignity to the primary one, which raises it into a more conspicuous situation among the great bodies of our system. For upwards of five hours I saw them go on together, each pursuing its own track." It was the heroic age of astronomical research. A hero there and a hero here were wrestling with difficulties and winning triumphs in the world of stars. They were men of extraordinary skill and unwearied endurance. It was nearly fifty years after their discovery before the fairies, Oberon and Titania, again condescended to show themselves to a mortal, the son of their discoverer.[1] And it enabled his aunt, then ninety years of age, to write: "These folks would not have called the Herschelian construction useless, if they had seen the struggle, during the years from 1781 to '86, to get a sight of
- ↑ Holden, Life wnd Works of W, H., p. 143. But see Caroline's Memoirs, pp. 261, 305.
