Mr. Watson was employed,) to get Watson to make an instrument in
opposition to Herschel's. The order being given by Adams, Watson set
about the work, and had made some progress in the construction of the
instrument, when the circumstance found its way to the ears of royalty.
Orders were immediately sent to Mr. Adams to put a stop to the work, or
he should no longer be optician to the king. Watson did not proceed, but
could never learn the cause of the counter-order, till after a lapse of
several years, when a stranger called on him, in Valentine-place,
Blackfriars-road, and after putting several questions to him about his
instruments, related to him the cause of the counter-order; upon which
Mr. Watson showed him the progress he had made, and which I have also
seen. This story I heard related by Mr. Watson at a dinner party at Mr.
Arnold's, at Well Hall, near Eltham, where were also Mr. Dollonds, and
Mr. J. R. Arnold, the son.

A Constant Reader.

August, 24, 1828.

Our Correspondent will perceive that we have qualified some phrases of
his letter, but that all the facts appear.

The _Quarterly Review_, No. 75, from which our notice was taken, is
tolerably plain upon the lack of patronage towards astronomy in this
country, and seems disposed, in enumerating the state of astronomical
knowledge in civilized Europe, to place Great Britain beside Spain or
Turkey![4] We chance to know that one of the most able and enterprising
astronomers of the present day relinquished a lucrative profession, that
he might be more at leisure to indulge his philosophical pursuits; so
that, if patrons be wanting, this apathy does not appear to have