show the king, etc., objects
through the seven-foot. But when the days began to shorten, this was
found impossible, for the telescope was often (at no small expense
and risk of damage) obliged to be transported in the dark back to
Datchet, for the purpose of spending the rest of the night with
observations on double stars for a second catalogue. My brother was,
besides, obliged to be absent for a week or ten days, for the
purpose of bringing home the metal of the cracked thirty-foot
mirror, and the remaining materials from his work-room. Before the
furnace was taken down at Bath, a second twenty-foot mirror, twelve
inches diameter, was cast, which happened to be very fortunate, for
on the 1st of January, 1783, a very fine one cracked by frost in the
tube.

. . . "In my brother's absence from home I was, of course, left alone
to amuse myself with my own thoughts, which were anything but
cheerful. I found I was to be trained for an assistant astronomer,
and, by way of encouragement, a telescope adapted for 'sweeping,'
consisting of a tube with two glasses, such as are commonly used in
a 'finder,' was given me. I was 'to sweep for comets,' and I see, by
my journal, that I began August 22d, 1782, to write down and
describe all remarkable appearances I saw in my 'sweeps,' which were
horizontal. But it was not till the last two months of the same year
that I felt the least encouragement to spend the star-light nights
on a grass-plot covered with dew or hoar-frost, without a human
being near enough to be within call. I knew too little of the real
heavens to be able to point out every object so as to find it again,
without losing much time by consulting the Atlas. But all these
troubles were removed when I knew my brother to be at no great
distance making observations, with his various instruments, on
double stars, planets, etc., and when I could have his assistance
immediately if I found a nebula or cluster of stars, of which I
intended to give a catalogue; but, at the end of 1783, I had only
marked fourteen, when my sweeping was interrupted by being employed
to write down my brother's observations with the large twenty-foot.
I had, however, the comfort to see that my brother was satisfied
with my endeavors to assist him when he wanted another person either
to run to the clocks, write