respects she was the real, but not the nominal head of that centre of activity and discovery. When Dr. Burney called on Herschel in 1798, ten years after his marriage with Mrs. Pitt, to consult him about his great poem on astronomy and astronomers, he was surprised to find Mrs. Herschel, and not her sister-in-law Caroline, at the head of the table, while a merry little son of six, afterwards Sir John Herschel, amused him and the rest of the company. Dr. Bumey did not know that his friend William Herschel was married. Even in 1817, another visitor, Dr. Niemeyer, was equally ignorant. These are proofs of the gentle, retiring nature of the wife, to which Herschel's friends bear witness, and of the overshadowing celebrity to which his sister had attained. From all quarters we learn that it was as pleasant a home as it was a famous observatory.
Miss Burney, the famous authoress of Evelina, who accepted the post of assistant wardrobe keeper to the Queen in Windsor Castle at £200 a year, when she might have earned ten times that amount by her pen, and retained her independence besides, may possibly have had a fellow-feeling with Herschel, who was condemned, as she was, to bear heavy burdens from the etiquette of a court. Her picture of him is every way delightful; his wife comes in for a briefer notice and for less praise. At a tea-party and concert in Windsor she met them both, five months after their marriage. "Two young ladies were to perform," she says, "in a little concert. Dr. Herschel was there, and accompanied them very sweetly on the violin; his new-married wife was with him, and his sister. His wife seems good-natured; she was rich, too! and astro-
