A delightful picture of the old age of Herschel is given by the poet Campbell,[1] whose nature was fitted to perceive the beauties of a grand and simple character like Herschel's:
[Brighton], September 15, 1813.
.... "I wish you had been with me the day before yesterday, when you would have joined me, I am sure, deeply in admiring a great, simple, good old man—Dr.
Herschel. Do not think me vain, or at least put up with my vanity, in saying that I almost flatter myself I have made him my friend. I have got an invitation, and a pressing one, to go to his house; and the lady who introduced me to him, says he spoke of me as if he would really be happy to see me.... I spent all Sunday with him and his family. His son is a prodigy in sciences, and fond of poetry, but very unassuming.... Now, for the old astronomer himself. His simplicity, his kindness, his anecdotes, his readiness to explain—and make perfectly conspicuous too—his own sublime conceptions of the universe are indescribably charming. He is seventy-six, but fresh and stout; and there he sat, nearest the door, at his friend's house, alternately smiling at a joke, or contentedly sitting without share or notice in the conversation. Any train of
con-
- ↑ Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell, edited by William Beattie, vol. ii., p. 234.
