King of Spain, at the expense of 1200_l._; and a short time before his death, which took place in 1768, he finished the specula of the large telescope which was mounted equatorially for the observatory of Edinburgh by his brother Thomas Short, who was offered twelve hundred guineas for it by the King of Denmark. Although the superiority of these instruments, which were all of the Gregorian form, demonstrated the value of the reflecting telescope, yet no skilful hand had yet directed it to the heavens; and it was reserved for Dr. Herschel to employ it as an instrument of discovery, to exhibit to the eye of man new worlds and new systems, and to bring within the grasp of his reason those remote regions of space to which his imagination even had scarcely ventured to extend its power. So early as 1774 he completed a _five_-feet Newtonian reflector, and he afterward executed no fewer than _two hundred_ 7 feet, _one hundred and fifty_ 10 feet, and _eighty_ 20 feet specula. In 1781 he began a reflector thirty feet long, and having a speculum thirty-six inches in diameter; and under the munificent patronage of George III. he completed, in 1789, his gigantic instrument forty feet long, with a speculum _forty-nine and a half_ inches in diameter. The genius and perseverance which created instruments of such transcendent magnitude were not likely to terminate with their construction. In the examination of the starry heavens, the ultimate object of his labours, Dr. Herschel exhibited the same exalted qualifications, and in a few years he rose from the level of humble life to the enjoyment of a name more glorious than that of the sages and warriors of ancient times, and as immortal as the objects with which it will be for ever associated. Nor was it in the ardour of the spring of life that these triumphs of reason were achieved. Dr. Herschel had reached the middle of his course before his career of discovery began, and it was in the autumn and winter of his days that he reaped the full harvest of his glory. The discovery of a new planet at the verge of the solar system was the first trophy of his skill, and new double and multiple stars, and new nebulæ, and groups of celestial bodies were added in thousands to the system of the universe. The spring-tide of knowledge which was thus let in upon the human mind continued for a while to spread its waves over Europe; but when it sank to its ebb in England, there was no other bark left upon the strand but that of the Deucalion of Science, whose home had been so long upon its waters. During the life of Dr. Herschel, and during the reign, and within the dominions of his royal patron, four new planets were added to the solar system, but they were detected by telescopes of ordinary power; and we venture to state, that since the reign of George III. no attempt has been made to keep up the continuity of Dr. Herschel’s discoveries.