on, two days after landing from Madeira. On that evening Mr
Hind discovered the planet; and he requested me to give a name. I
remembered Horace's 'Praecipe lugubres cantus, Melpomene,' and
Cowley's 'I called the buskin'd muse Melpomene and told her what sad
story I would write,' and suggested Melpomene, or Penthos: Melpomene
was adopted.--The first move about the Deal Time Ball was in a letter
from Commander Baldock to the Admiralty, suggesting that a Time Ball,
dropped by galvanic current from Greenwich, should be attached to one
of the South Foreland Lighthouses. The Admiralty sent this for my
Report. I went to the place, and I suggested in reply (Nov. 15th) that
a better place would be at an old signal station on the chalk
downs. The decisive change from this was made in 1853.--As the result
of my examination and enquiries into the subject of sympathetic
clocks, I established 8 sympathetic clocks in the Royal Observatory,
one of which outside the entrance gate had a large dial with
Shepherd's name as Patentee. Exception was taken to this by the
solicitor of a Mr Bain who had busied himself about galvanic
clocks. After much correspondence I agreed to remove Shepherd's name
till Bain had legally established his claim. This however was never
done: and in 1853 Shepherd's name was restored.--In Nov. 1851,
Denison had consented to join me in the preparation of the Westminster
Clock. In Feb. 1852 we began to have little disagreements. However on
Apr. 6th I was going to Madeira, and requested him to act with full
powers from me.--I communicated to the Royal Society my Paper on the
Eclipses of Agathocles, Thales, and Xerxes.--In the British
Association, I had presided at the Ipswich Meeting in 1851, and
according to custom I ought to attend at the 1852 Meeting (held at
Belfast) to resign my office. But I was broken in spirit by the death
of my daughter, and the thing generally was beyond my willing
enterprise. I requested Sir Roderick Murchison to act generally for
me: which he did, as I understood, very gracefully.--In this year a
proposal was made by the Government for shifting all the Meeting Rooms
of the Scientific Societies to Kensington Gore, which was stoutly
resisted by all, and was finally abandoned."

Of private history: "I was at Playford in January, and went thence to
Chester on the enquiry about the tides of the Dee; and made excursions
to Halton Castle and to Holyhead.--From Apr. 8th to May 14th I was on
the vo