Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works Part 1

Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works.

by Edward Singleton Holden.

PREFACE.

In the following account of the life and works of Sir WILLIAM HERSCHEL, I have been obliged to depend strictly upon data already in print--the _Memoir_ of his sister, his own scientific writings and the memoirs and diaries of his cotemporaries. The review of his published works will, I trust, be of use. It is based upon a careful study of all his papers in the _Philosophical Transactions_ and elsewhere.

A life of HERSCHEL which shall be satisfactory in every particular can only be written after a full examination of the materials which are preserved at the family seat in England; but as two generations have pa.s.sed since his death, and as no biography yet exists which approaches to completeness, no apology seems to me to be needed for a conscientious attempt to make the best use of the scanty material which we do possess.

This study will, I trust, serve to exhibit so much of his life as belongs to the whole public. His private life belongs to his family, until the time is come to let the world know more of the greatest of practical astronomers and of the inner life of one of its most profound philosophers,--of a great and ardent mind, whose achievements are and will remain the glory of England.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS; 1738-1772.

Of the great modern philosophers, that one of whom least is known, is WILLIAM HERSCHEL. We may appropriate the words which escaped him when the barren region of the sky near the body of _Scorpio_ was pa.s.sing slowly through the field of his great reflector, during one of his sweeps, to express our own sense of absence of light and knowledge: _Hier ist wahrhaftig ein Loch im Himmel._

HERSCHEL prepared, about the year 1818, a biographical memorandum, which his sister CAROLINA placed among his papers.

This has never been made public. The only thoroughly authentic sources of information in possession of the world, are a letter written by HERSCHEL himself, in answer to a pressing request for a sketch of his life, and the _Memoir and Correspondence of CAROLINE HERSCHEL_ (London, 1876), a precious memorial not only of his life, but of one which otherwise would have remained almost unknown, and one, too, which the world could ill afford to lose. The latter, which has been ably edited by Mrs. MARY CORNWALLIS HERSCHEL,[1] is the only source of knowledge in regard to the early years of the great astronomer, and together with the all too scanty materials to be gained from a diligent search through the biography of the time, affords the data for those personal details of his life, habits, and character, which seem to complete the distinct, though partial conception of him which the student of his philosophical writings acquires.

The letter referred to was published in the Gottingen Magazine of Science and Literature, III., 4, shortly after the name of HERSCHEL had become familiar to every ear through his discovery of _Ura.n.u.s_, but while the circ.u.mstances of the discovery, and the condition of the amateur who made it, were still entirely unknown.

The editor (LICHTENBERG) says:

"Herr HERSCHEL was good enough to send me, some time since, through Herr MAGELLAN, copies of his Dissertations on Double Stars, on the Parallax of the Fixed Stars, and on a new Micrometer. In the letter which conveyed to him my thanks for his gift, I requested him to note down a few facts in regard to his life, for publication in this magazine, since various accounts, more or less incorrect, had appeared in several journals. In answer, I received a very obliging letter from him and what follows is that portion of it relating to my request, which was sent me with full permission to make it public."

"DATCHET, NEAR WINDSOR, _Nov. 15, 1783._

"I was born in Hanover, November, 1738. My father, who was a musician, destined me to the same profession, hence I was instructed betimes in his art. That I might acquire a perfect knowledge of the theory as well as of the practice of music, I was set at an early age to study mathematics in all its branches--algebra, conic sections, infinitesimal a.n.a.lysis, and the rest.

"The insatiable desire for knowledge thus awakened resulted next in a course of languages; I learned French, English, and Latin, and steadfastly resolved henceforth to devote myself wholly to those sciences from the pursuit of which I alone looked for all my future happiness and enjoyment. I have never been either necessitated or disposed to alter this resolve. My father, whose means were limited, and who consequently could not be as liberal to his children as he would have desired, was compelled to dispose of them in one way or another at an early age; consequently in my fifteenth year I enlisted in military service, only remaining in the army, however, until I reached my nineteenth year, when I resigned and went over to England.

"My familiarity with the organ, which I had carefully mastered previously, soon procured for me the position of organist in Yorkshire, which I finally exchanged for a similar situation at Bath in 1766, and while here the peculiar circ.u.mstances of my post, as agreeable as it was lucrative, made it possible for me to occupy myself once more with my studies, especially with mathematics. When, in the course of time, I took up astronomy, I determined to accept nothing on faith, but to see with my own eyes everything which others had seen before me. Having already some knowledge of the science of optics, I resolved to manufacture my own telescopes, and after many continuous, determined trials, I finally succeeded in completing a so-called Newtonian instrument, seven feet in length.

From this I advanced to one of ten feet, and at last to one of twenty, for I had fully made up my mind to carry on the improvement of my telescopes as far as it could possibly be done. When I had carefully and thoroughly perfected the great instrument in all its parts, I made systematic use of it in my observations of the heavens, first forming a determination never to pa.s.s by any, the smallest, portion of them without due investigation. This habit, persisted in, led to the discovery of the new planet (_Georgium Sidus_). This was by no means the result of chance, but a simple consequence of the position of the planet on that particular evening, since it occupied precisely that spot in the heavens which came in the order of the minute observations that I had previously mapped out for myself. Had I not seen it just when I did, I must inevitably have come upon it soon after, since my telescope was so perfect that I was able to distinguish it from a fixed star in the first minute of observation.

"Now to bring this sketch to a close. As the king had expressed a desire to see my telescope, I took it by his command to Greenwich, where it was compared with the instruments of my excellent friend, Dr. MASKELYNE, not only by himself, but by other experts, who p.r.o.nounced it as their opinion that my instrument was superior to all the rest. Thereupon the king ordered that the instrument be brought to Windsor, and since it there met with marked approval, his majesty graciously awarded me a yearly pension, that I might be enabled to relinquish my profession of music, and devote my whole time to astronomy and the improvement of the telescope. Grat.i.tude, as well as other considerations specified by me in a paper presented to the Royal Society, of which I am a member, has induced me to call the new planet _Georgium Sidus_.

"'Georgium Sidus.--jam nunc a.s.suesce vocari.'--(_Virgil._)

And I hope it will retain the name."

We know but little of the family of HERSCHEL. The name is undoubtedly Jewish, and is found in Poland, Germany, and England. We learn that the ancestors of the present branch left Moravia about the beginning of the XVIIth century, on account of their change of religion to Protestantism.

They became possessors of land in Saxony. HANS HERSCHEL, the great-grandfather of WILLIAM, was a brewer in Pirna (a small town near Dresden). Of the two sons of HANS, one, ABRAHAM (born in 1651, died 1718), was employed in the royal gardens at Dresden, and seems to have been a man of taste and skill in his calling. Of his eldest son, EUSEBIUS, there appears to be little trace in the records of the family.

The second son, BENJAMIN, died in infancy; the third, ISAAC, was born in 1707 (Jan. 14), and was thus an orphan at eleven years of age. ISAAC was the father of the great astronomer.

He appears to have early had a pa.s.sionate fondness for music, and this, added to a distaste for his father's calling, determined his career. He was taught music by an oboe-player in the royal band, and he also learned the violin. At the age of twenty-one he studied music for a year under the Cappelmeister PABRICH, at Potsdam, and in August, 1731, he became oboist in the band of the Guards, at Hanover. In August, 1732, he married ANNA ILSE MORITZEN. She appears to have been a careful and busy wife and mother, possessed of no special faculties which would lead us to attribute to her care any great part of the abilities of her son.

She could not herself write the letters which she sent to her husband during his absences with his regiment. It was her firm belief that the separations and some of the sorrows of the family came from too much learning; and while she could not hinder the education of the sons of the family, she prevented their sisters from learning French and dancing. It is but just to say that the useful accomplishments of cooking, sewing, and the care of a household, were thoroughly taught by her to her two daughters. The father, ISAAC, appears to have been of a different mould, and to him, no doubt, the chief intellectual characteristics of the family are due. His position obliged him to be often absent from Hanover, with his regiment, but his hand appears to have been always present, smoothing over difficulties, and encouraging his sons to such learning and improvement as was to be had.

His health was seriously injured by the exposures of the campaigns, and he was left, after the Seven Years' War, with a broken const.i.tution.

After his final return home, in 1760, his daughter gives this record of him--

"Copying music employed every vacant moment, even sometimes throughout half the night. . . . With my brother [DIETRICH]--now a little engaging creature of between four and five years old--he was very much pleased, and [on the first evening of his arrival at home]

before he went to rest, the Adempken (a little violin) was taken from the shelf and newly strung, and the daily lessons immediately commenced. . . . I do not recollect that he ever desired any other society than what he had opportunities of enjoying in many of the parties where he was introduced by his profession, though far from being of a morose disposition; he would frequently encourage my mother in keeping up a social intercourse among a few acquaintances, whilst his afternoon hours generally were taken up in giving lessons to some scholars at home, who gladly saved him the troublesome exertion of walking. . . . He also found great pleasure in seeing DIETRICH'S improvement, who, young as he was, and of the most lively temper imaginable, was always ready to receive his lessons, leaving his little companions with the greatest cheerfulness to go to his father, who was so pleased with his performances that he made him play a solo on the Adempken in RAKE'S concert, being placed on a table before a crowded company, for which he was very much applauded and caressed, particularly by an English lady, who put a gold coin in his little pocket.

"It was not long before my father had as many scholars as he could find time to attend. And when they a.s.sembled at my father's to make little concerts, I was frequently called to join the second violin in an overture, for my father found pleasure in giving me sometimes a lesson before the instruments were laid by, after practising with DIETRICH, for I never was missing at those hours, sitting in a corner with my knitting and listening all the while."

Here, as in all her writing, CAROLINA is simple, true, direct to awkwardness, and unconsciously pathetic even in joy.

The family of ISAAC and ANNA HERSCHEL consisted of ten children. Six of these lived to adult age. They were:

1. SOPHIA ELIZABETH; born 1733, married GRIESBACH, a musician in the Guard, by whom she had children. Five of her sons were afterwards musicians at the court, in England, where they obtained places through the influence of WILLIAM.

2. HENRY ANTON JACOB; born 1734, November 20.

4. FREDERIC WILLIAM (the astronomer) born 1738, November 15.

6. JOHN ALEXANDER; born 1745, November 13.

8. CAROLINA LUCRETIA; born 1750, March 16.

10. DIETRICH; born 1755, September 13.

Of this family group, the important figures to us are WILLIAM, ALEXANDER, and CAROLINA.

JACOB was organist at the Garrison Church of Hanover in 1753, a member of the Guards' band in 1755, and first violin in the Hanover Court Orchestra in 1759. Afterwards he joined his brother WILLIAM in Bath, but again returned to Hanover. In 1771 he published in Amsterdam his Opus I., a set of six quartettes, and later, in London, he published two symphonies and six trios. He appears to have been a clever musician, and his letters to his younger brother WILLIAM are full of discussion on points of musical composition, etc. He died in 1792.

DIETRICH, the youngest brother, shared in the musical abilities of his family, and when only fifteen years old was so far advanced as to be able to supply his brother JACOB'S place in the Court Orchestra, and to give his lessons to private pupils. There is no one of the family, except the eldest daughter, whom we do not know to have possessed marked ability in music, and this taste descended truly for four generations.

In the letters of Chevalier BUNSEN,[2] he describes meeting, in 1847, the eldest granddaughter of WILLIAM HERSCHEL, who, he says, "is a musical genius."

Three members of the family, WILLIAM, ALEXANDER, and CAROLINA, formed a group which was inseparable for many years, and while the progress of the lives of ALEXANDER and CAROLINA was determined by the energy and efforts of WILLIAM, these two lent him an aid without which his career would have been strangely different. It is necessary to understand a little better the early life of all three.

The sons of the HERSCHEL family all attended the garrison school in Hanover until they were about fourteen years old. They were taught the ordinary rudiments of knowledge--to read, to write, to cipher--and a knowledge of French and English was added. WILLIAM especially distinguished himself in his studies, learning French very rapidly, and studying Latin and arithmetic with his master out of hours. The household life seems to have been active, harmonious, and intelligent, especially during the presence of the father, who took a great delight in the rapid progress of all his sons in music, and who encouraged them with his companionship in their studies and in their reading on all intellectual subjects.

From the _Memoir_ of CAROLINA, on which we must depend for our knowledge of this early life, we take the following paragraph:

"My brothers were often introduced as solo performers and a.s.sistants in the orchestra of the court, and I remember that I was frequently prevented from going to sleep by the lively criticism on music on coming from a concert, or by conversations on philosophical subjects, which lasted frequently till morning, in which my father was a lively partaker and a.s.sistant of my brother WILLIAM, by contriving self-made instruments. . . . Often I would keep myself awake that I might listen to their animating remarks, for it made _me so happy_ to see _them so happy_. But generally their conversation would branch out on philosophical subjects, when my brother WILLIAM and my father often argued with such warmth that my mother's interference became necessary, when the names LEIBNITZ, NEWTON, and EULER sounded rather too loud for the repose of her little ones, who ought to be in school by seven in the morning. But it seems that on the brothers retiring to their own room, where they shared the same bed, my brother WILLIAM had still a great deal to say; and frequently it happened that when he stopped for an a.s.sent or reply, he found his hearer was gone to sleep, and I suppose it was not till then that he bethought himself to do the same.

"The recollection of these happy scenes confirms me in the belief, that had my brother WILLIAM not then been interrupted in his philosophical pursuits, we should have had much earlier proofs of his inventive genius. My father was a great admirer of astronomy, and had some knowledge of that science; for I remember his taking me, on a clear frosty night, into the street, to make me acquainted with several of the most beautiful constellations, after we had been gazing at a comet which was then visible. And I well remember with what delight he used to a.s.sist my brother WILLIAM in his various contrivances in the pursuit of his philosophical studies, among which was a neatly turned 4-inch globe, upon which the equator and ecliptic were engraved by my brother."