height, is said to have walked through with his umbrella up. The days of these gigantic tubes are past. The career of Herschel's 40-feet was inaugurated by a concert held within the tube, just as its end was celebrated half a century afterwards. "'God save the King' was sung in it by the whole company, who got up from dinner, and went into the tube, among the rest two Misses Stow, the one a famous pianoforte player, some of the Griesbachs, who accompanied on the oboe, or any instrument they could get hold of, and I," Caroline in her ninetieth year continues, "you will easily imagine, was one of the nimblest and foremost to get in and out of the tube. But now!—lack-a-day!—I can hardly cross the room without help." She was then a giddy girl of only thirty-seven! But when the concert was held in the tube at the end of the great telescope's career, she was in Hanover, never destined again to see the noble work of her "best and dearest of brothers."
On the return of Sir John Herschel from South Africa in 1838, it was found that the woodwork of the great telescope was so decayed that the structure was dangerous. It had stood exposed to wind and weather for more than fifty years, and the discovery of its unsafe condition was made on the centenary of the builder's birth. In the following year it was taken down, and on New Year's Eve[1] a meeting of the Herschel family was held within the iron tube, then lowered on the ground, to celebrate the end of the instrument. Sir John's ballad was sung that night, and is now preserved as a printed broadside among
- ↑ Said in the Memoirs to have been at Christmas (p. 810). Different in Arago, Biographies, 171.
