148

HISTORY OF

[ 1780 — 85 .

Saturn, in mythology, as Saturn is of Jupiter , andJupiter of Mars ; but what will be done if a newplanet should be discovered still more distant thanUranus ?” A new planet has been discovered by twomaster minds, independently of each other, in a man-ner which renders the discovery of Uranus deeplyinteresting.

A reference to old catalogues showed that “ Uranus had been seen and noted as a star five times byFlamsteed, once by Bradley, once by Mayer, andtwelve times by Lemonnier; the last of whom (saysArago) must have been the discoverer of the planet,if he had only arranged his observations so as to lookat all those of the same star at once.”

The Copley Medal was awarded to Sir WilliamHerschel at the Anniversary in 1781; on which occa-sion Sir Joseph Banks thus addressed the astrono-mer :—

“ In the name of the Royal Society I present to youthis gold medal, the reward which they have assignedto your successful labours, and I exhort you to continuediligently to cultivate those fields of science which haveproduced to you a harvest of so much honour. Yourattention to the improvement of Telescopes has already

the Log and Line , and other unnatural intrusions into the starryheavens, which, with all the pretensions of the moderns, are just asinapplicable as the grotesque chimeras of the ancients. Indeed,“ it is to mythology,” says Sir John Herschel , “ and to classicantiquity that I should be disposed to retreat, as to a neutralground, on which to escape from vexatious and interminable dis-cussions on this head.” The view is correct: those who would sweepaway the constellations altogether as incongruous absurdities, orwicked pagan allusions, seem rather reckless about the consequencesof such a measure on astronomical history, chronology, and extra-observatorial practice .”—Cycle of Celestial Objects, YoL i. p. 437-