forward, and not having immediate access to each book or paper at the moment when wanted.
January 4th.—Spent the evening at my brother's. Sir Wm. Watson[1] and Mr. Wilson[2] were there.
February llth.—My brother went to Bath to make some stay there, having taken a house on Sion Hill.
February 26th.—Mrs. Herschel, Miss Cobet, and the servants left Slough for Bath. Russell, the horse-keeper, and his wife, were, along with me, left in charge of the house, from which I seldom was absent at any other time but to go to dinner at my lodging every day at one o'clock.
March 29th.—The Prince of Orange stepped in to ask some questions about planets, &c.[3]
LordKirkwall and a gentleman came to see the instruments.
April 1st.—My brother arrived at Slough, and on the llth he took a paper to the E. S., which he brought with him for me to copy in the clear. The fine nights were spent with sweeping. *****
- ↑ Sir William Watson, M.D., Knight, F.R.S. from 1770 to 1800, when he resigned. He was one of the first members of the Astronomical Society at its foundation in 1821 under the Presidency of William Herschel. His father, also M. D. and Knight, was the eminent botanist and naturalist. He lived much at Dawlish, where the Herschel family frequently went to stay with him.
- ↑ Alexander Wilson, M.D., professor of practical astronomy in the University of Glasgow, and first propounder of that theory as to the cause and nature of the spots on the sun, which was afterwards fully corroborated and worked out by Sir W. Herschel.
- ↑ The Prince's questions were sometimes of a very remarkable kind. On a previous occasion when he "stept in" with a view to having them answered, and was not so fortunate as to find anyone at home, he left the following memorandum: "The Prince of Orange has been at Slough to call at Mr. Herschel's and to ask him, or if he was not at home to Miss Herschel, if it is true that Mr. Herschel has discovered a new star, whose light was not as that of the common stars, but with swallow tails, as stars in embroidery. He has seen this reported in the newspapers, and wishes to know if there is any foundation to that report.—Slough, the 8th of August, 1798.—W. Prince of Orange."
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