MISS HERSCHEL TO J. F. W. HERSCHEL.

Feb. 1, 1826.

My dearest Nephew,—

On the 17th January I received by the same post your letters of December 30th and January 9th. I should have answered your precious communication of December 30th immediately if I was not in hopes of receiving daily an answer to what I sent on the 28th December. I cannot express my thanks sufficiently to you for thinking me worthy of forming any judgment of your astronomical proceedings, and am only sorry that I cannot recall the health, eyesight, and vigor I was blessed with twenty or thirty years ago; for nothing else is wanting (and that is all) for my coming by the first steamboat to offer you the same assistance (when sweeping) as, by your father's instructions, I had been enabled to afford him. For an observer at your twenty-foot when sweeping wants nothing but a being that can and will execute his commands with the quickness of lightning [!], for you will have seen that in many sweeps six or twice six, &c., objects have been secured and described within the space of one minute of time.

I cannot think that any catalogue but the MS. one in zones (which was only intended for your own use) would facilitate the reviewing of the Nebulæ, and you are the only one to whom 1885, viz., 2nd and 3rd class, out of the 2500, can be visible in your twenty-foot.