It is a melancholy fact that the estimable qualities of patience and industry do not, by themselves, enable their possessor to attain eminence in the arts. There is very good reason to suppose that character, particularly a certain simple type of integrity and sincerity, is necessary to great artistic achievement, but it is certain that such gifts are not sufficient; they must be allied with very unusual mental qualities. In the sciences, however, we often find work of very great importance being performed by men of quite average intelligence, but of exceptional tenacity. A pure heart seems to be all that is necessary. This is not true, of course, of the mathematical sciences--mathematicians, like musicians, are “born”--but it is very obviously true of what are called the “observational” sciences. A history of Astronomy, in particular, is interesting from this point of view. The fact that the whole of our knowledge of the heavens comes through the sense of sight, and that we cannot experiment, in the ordinary way, upon the heavenly bodies, means that the patient observer, by merely accumulating observations, is performing an absolutely essential function. There is no other subject which yields such rich rewards to mere patience. There is no other subject which has so long a record of valuable discoveries achieved by purely average ability. It is interesting to notice how often a telescope and a capacity for sitting still have made their owners immortal. In the region of stellar astronomy the minuteness of the phenomena which may be observed has narrowed possible competitors to those possessing large instruments, and that usually means public institutions and professional astronomers. But the history of our knowledge of the nearer heavenly bodies, the sun, the planets and the moon, owes much to the industrious amateur. No history of planetary and lunar discoveries would be complete without mention of Schröter, the “Oberamtmann” of Lilienthal, who watched the moon and planets incessantly for thirty-four years with a patience only equalled by his enthusiasm. He died of a “broken heart,” the result of a French atrocity, for after firing, on the night of April 20, 1813, the Vale of Lilies and thereby destroying, amongst other things, the whole of Schröter’s books and writings, the French army under Vandamme broke into and pillaged his observatory. The old man, then sixty-eight years of age, had not the means to repair the catastrophe, and, deprived of his one great interest, he died three years later, leaving, amongst his published works, some of the most long-winded and entertaining observations in the history of astronomy.