Page:Williamherschel00simegoog.djvu/64

52 and the changes it was found to undergo in 333 or 334 days, he made at least fourteen separate observations and measurements between October 20, 1777, and February 7, 1780. He was only feeling his way as a recorder of what he saw in the heavens. It was but a beginning, and he was forty-two years of age.

To do justice to this eager lover of nature, the object which he had in view when he began to make telescopes for himself, should not be forgotten. He wanted to see with his own eyes what others had seen in the heavens, he hoped to see more than they had seen, and at last he determined to build an instrument of such power as should penetrate the depths of space far beyond the boundaries man had at that time attained. His purpose was to see the heavens as the telescope had revealed them to the eyes of others; it was not to be an assistant in an observatory such as Greenwich, content to discharge the routine work of each day, or perhaps of each night. A telescope, a most powerful telescope, was the purpose deeply rooted in his mind; it was not to improve the instruments then in use, nor to systematise the work done in observatories. Perhaps he had a large share in doing both. He read the scientific world a lesson on the necessity of all-night as well as all-day work, which they stood much in need of learning. Great and valuable as was the work done at Greenwich then and previously, it was done at small expense to the nation. An astronomer-royal at £300 a year, an assistant at £70, and a kitchen-garden was the kailyard policy pursued by our country up to 1811. Remonstrances were presented