way. Him had Betty called in her fright, for his wife (who is of use to nobody) is gone to spend the summer months in the country." Even in the presence of death and in the ninetieth year of her age, the old spirit of drollery gives piquancy to her views of men and women. In committing to paper her last reflections on the disappointments of life, she writes: You "will see what a solitary and useless life I have led these seventeen years, all owing to not finding Hanover, nor any one in it, like what I left, when the best of brothers took me with him to England in August, 1772!" In reality it was she herself, dissatisfied with earth, who was longing for something better than earth can give. She tells us what it was in the epitaph that she wrote on herself, and that was graven on her tomb:—
Here rests the earthly exterior of
CAROLINA HERSCHEL,
Born at Hanover, March 16, 1750,
Died January 9, 1848.
The eyes of Her who is glorified were here below turned to the starry Heavens. Her own Discoveries of Comets, and her participation in the immortal Labours of her Brother, William Herschel, bear witness of this to future ages.
The Royal Irish Academy of Dublin and the Royal Astronomical Society of London enrolled Her name among their members.
At the age of 97 years 10 months she fell asleep in calm rest and in the full possession of her faculties, following into a better Life her Father, Isaac Herschel, who lived to the age of 60 years 2 months 17 days, and lies buried not far off, since the 29th of March 1767.
Were it not for the unquestionable authority with which it comes to us that she wrote this account of her death with her own hand, we might be disposed to
