... I know not how it comes that I am so barren of subjects for filling up these pages; my spirits are rather depressed at present on account of my brother’s health, who suffers very frequently much from weakness, so that to combat against infirmities and peevishness (the usual companions of old age) depends entirely on my exertion to bear my share without communication, for unfortunately we are never in the same mind, and with a nervous person of an irritable temper one can only talk of the weather or the flavour of a dish, for which I care not a pin about. But I think I shall do well enough, for I am a subscriber to the plays for two evenings per week, and Thursdays and Saturdays two ladies with long titles are _at home_. This is what they _imagine_ (I believe) a learned society, or blue-stocking club, of which, to make it complete (for all what I can say), I must make one. I am to have a day too, viz., Tuesday, and I begin to tremble for the end of October, when we are to start, for in the morning I cannot work, and if I gad about all the evenings nothing will be done. But we shall see! one thing I must not forget, there are no gentlemen of the party to set us right; but luckily not much is required,—to talk of Walter Scott, Byron, &c., will go a long way; and I subscribe to an English library, where they have all the monthly reviews and Edinburgh Quarterly, Scott’s works, and a few other novels.... Believe me yours affectionately, C. HERSCHEL. [Sidenote: 1825. _J. F. W. Herschel—Gold Medal._] FROM J. F. W. HERSCHEL TO MISS HERSCHEL. SLOUGH [_after July_], 1825. DEAR AUNT,— I have sent by Mr. Goltermann several volumes of Mr. South’s and my paper on double stars, which form the third part of the Philosophical Transactions for 1824. You will, I have no doubt, be gratified to hear that the French Academy of Sciences have thought so well of this work as to give us the prize of astronomy for the present year (a large and handsome gold medal to each of us). Our competitors, it is whispered, were Bessel, Struve, and Pons, the first for his immense catalogue of stars; the second for his observations, also of double stars; the third for his discovery of twenty or thirty comets. Will you, on receiving them, distribute them as follows:—1. Keep the bound copy for yourself; 2. My uncle; 3. M. Harding; 4. M. Gauss; 5. The Royal Society of Göttingen. The three last, I have no doubt, M. Blumenbach will forward. I was gratified some time back by a short note from Professor Blumenbach, from which I find he received the pictures safely. * * * * *