These memorials of his father and his aunt were much valued by Sir John Herschel, and they are carefully preserved by the family along with her letters. The perusal of them is like reading of another world. The glimpses of the life of a soldier’s family in Hanover at the time the Seven Years’ War was going on are very touching. Both father and mother must have been remarkable persons, and the sterling quality of character developed in William and Caroline Herschel was evidently derived from them. All the family seem to have been endowed with something like touches of genius, but William and Caroline were the only two who had the strong back-bone of perseverance and high principle which made genius in them fulfil its perfect work. Her own recollections go back to the Great Earthquake at Lisbon; she lived through the American War, the old French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon, and all manner of lesser events and wars. She saw all the improvements and inventions, from the lumbering post waggon in which she made her first journey from Hanover, to the railroads and electric telegraphs which have intersected all Europe, for she lived well down into the reign of Victoria. But her work of “minding the heavens” with her brother engrossed all her thoughts, and she scarcely mentions any public event. Her own astronomical labours were remarkable, and in her later life she met with honour and recognition from learned men and learned societies; but her dominant idea was always the same—“I am nothing, I have done nothing; all I am, all I know, I owe to my brother. I am only the tool which he shaped to his use—a well-trained puppy-dog would have done as much.” Every word said in her own praise seemed to be so much taken away from the honour due to her brother. She had lived so many years in companionship with a truly great man, and in the presence of the unfathomable depths of the starry heavens, that praise of herself seemed childish exaggeration. The Letters and Recollections contained in this volume will show what she really was. She would have been very angry if she could have foreseen their publication, yet, in consideration of the great interest they possess, we hope to be justified for making known to the world such an example of self-sacrifice and perseverance under difficulties. The spelling has been modernised,—an old lady who had discovered eight comets might be allowed to spell in her own way; but it is pleasanter to read what is written in an accustomed manner. A word has been altered occasionally where the sense required it, otherwise no change has been made, and as little has been added as was possible, and only with the view of giving a slight connecting thread of narrative. If these Recollections convey as much pleasure to the readers of them as they have given to the Editor, they will feel that they have gained another friend in Caroline Lucretia Herschel. _December, 1875._ NOTE.