The world speedily rang with the news of this splendid achievement. Instantly the name of Le Verrier rose to a pinnacle hardly surpassed by that of any astronomer of any age or country. The circumstances of the discovery were highly dramatic. We picture the great astronomer buried in profound meditation for many months; his eyes are bent, not on the stars, but on his calculations. No telescope is in his hand; the human intellect is the instrument he alone uses. With patient labour, guided by consummate mathematical artifice, he manipulates his columns of figures. He attempts one solution after another. In each he learns something to avoid; by each he obtains some light to guide him in his future labours. At length he begins to see harmony in those results where before there was but discord. Gradually the clouds disperse, and he discerns with a certainty little short of actual vision the planet glittering in the far depths of space. He rises from his desk and invokes the aid of a practical astronomer; and lo! there is the planet in the indicated spot. The annals of science present no such spectacle as this. It was the most triumphant proof of the law of universal gravitation. The Newtonian theory had indeed long ere this attained an impregnable position; but, as if to place its truth in the most conspicuous light, this discovery of Neptune was accomplished. For a moment it seemed as if the French were to enjoy the undivided honour of this splendid triumph; nor would it, indeed, have been unfitting that the nation which gave birth to Lagrange and to Laplace, and which developed the great Newtonian theory by their immortal labours, should have obtained this distinction. Up to the time of the telescopic discovery of the planet by Dr. Galle at Berlin, no public announcement had been made of the labours of Challis in searching for the planet, nor even of the theoretical researches of Adams on which those observations were based. But in the midst of the paeans of triumph with which the enthusiastic French nation hailed the discovery of Le Verrier, there appeared a letter from Sir John Herschel in the _Athenaeum_ for 3rd October, 1846, in which he announced the researches made by Adams, and claimed for him a participation in the glory of the discovery. Subsequent enquiry has shown that this claim was a just one, and it is now universally admitted by all independent authorities. Yet it will easily be imagined that the French _savants_, jealous of the fame of their countryman, could not at first be brought to recognise a claim so put forward. They were asked to divide the unparalleled honour between their own illustrious countryman and a young foreigner of whom but few had ever heard, and who had not even published a line of his work, nor had any claim been made on his part until after the work had been completely finished by Le Verrier. The demand made on behalf of Adams was accordingly refused any acknowledgment in France; and an