I think whoever reads the Preface to the description of the forty-foot telescope (see “Philosophical Transactions,” June 11, 1795), would not accuse him of jealousy—which also may be seen by the four volumes on the construction of Specula, which your father left behind in MSS., (to which you added those excellent drawings of the machinery, &c.), which it was my care, for half a dozen years at least, to save them from being devoured by the mice, by placing them on a table in the middle of the library, where I was obliged to leave them when I left Slough, for I could not find a better place for them. Your father was latterly most miserably stinted for room, and I fear many, many things have met with destruction in consequence of being put by in corners among rubbish when not in use. For instance, when polishing and the foci were to be tried, by three apertures, which generally wanted to be repaired first; (for the twenty-foot they were made of pasteboard, but for the forty-foot of light deal) and I was directed to hold them before the mirror, and, listening to the report of the trial, was glad to hear “All right, three foci perfectly alike!” and the work proceeded to perfect the polish. Dear nephew, I stick fast, and must give over talking about these things; it downright fatigues me. But 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 the Satellites of the Georgium Sidus, when, after throwing aside the speculum, they stood broad before us.... Pray, does South live still? MISS HERSCHEL TO SIR J. F. W. HERSCHEL. _March 31, 1841._ * * * * * Not to send blank paper, I will fill it by copying from my Day-book the names of the visitors I had to receive on the 16th of March. This I can do mechanically and by feeling, and it serves to pass away the time, as I cannot see to read for any length of time.