Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline HerschelHerschel, John, Mrs.
History
Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel
Herschel, John, Mrs.
Herschel, Caroline Lucretia, 1750-1848
We are now reduced to the short diary-like entries in a small book
entitled “_Extracts from a Day-Book kept during the years 1797 and
1821_,” which begins: “1797, in October I went to lodge and board with
one of my brother’s workmen (Sprat), whose wife was to attend on me. My
telescopes on the roof, to which I was to have occasional access, as
also to the room with the sweeping and observing apparatus, remained in
its former order, where I most days spent some hours in preparing work
to go on with at my lodging.” A chance memorandum shows how the leisure
time was employed; thus—“At the ending of 1787, or beginning of 1788,
began to make use of some of the proof-sheets of Wollaston’s Catalogue
along with Flamsteed’s;” and again, “December 24th, 1797, received
notice for printing the Index, which was not at all adapted for that
purpose; but March 8th, 1798, the copy was completed, and taken to the
Royal Society, and in the course of the summer the print was corrected.”
The following letter to the Astronomer Royal bears on this subject:—
[Sidenote: 1797-1798. _Astronomical._]
MISS HERSCHEL TO REV. DR. MASKELYNE.
SLOUGH, _Sept. 1798_.
DEAR SIR,—
I have for a long while past felt a desire of expressing my thanks to
you for having interested yourself so kindly for the little production
of my industry by being the promoter of the printing of the Index to
Flamsteed’s Observations. I thought the pains it had cost me were, and
would be, sufficiently rewarded in the use it had already been, and
might be in future, to my brother. But your having thought it worthy of
the press has flattered my vanity not a little. You see, sir, I do own
myself to be vain, because I would not wish to be singular; and was
there ever a woman without vanity? or a man either? only with this
difference, that among gentlemen the commodity is generally styled
ambition.
I wish it were possible to offer something which could be of use to our
Royal Astronomer than merely thanks. Perhaps the enclosed catalogue may
be of some little service on some occasion or other. I was obliged to
bring it into that form by way of scrutinizing the real number of
omitted stars, and find it now very useful when my brother, in sweeping,
&c., observes stars which are not contained in Wollaston’s Catalogue, to
know immediately by this order of R. A. if they are in any of
Flamsteed’s omitted stars, and if they are, what number they bear in the
catalogue of omitted stars, which number we find in the first column.
The rest of the columns will want no explanation, except the last, which
would not be complete, or even intelligible, without the assistance of
the catalogue of omitted stars, and the notes to that catalogue, for
they are short memorandums collected from the descriptions in the
catalogue, and from the notes to some of the stars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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