life would have been known, and Herschel could have been judged only
from the recorded results of his immense labours.


"_May 20th_.--The summer proved very hot; my brother's feeble
nerves were very much affected, and there being in general much
company, added to the difficulty of choosing the most airy
rooms for his retirement.

"_July 8th_.--I had a dawn of hope that my brother might regain
once more a little strength, for I have a memorandum in my
almanac of his walking with a firmer step than usual above
three or four times the distance from the dwelling-house to the
library, in order to gather and eat raspberries, in his garden,
with me. But I never saw the like again.

"The latter end of July I was seized by a bilious fever, and I
could for several days only rise for a few hours to go to my
brother about the time he was used to see me. But one day I was
entirely confined to my bed, which alarmed Lady Herschel and
the family _on my brother's account_. Miss Baldwin [a niece of
Lady Herschel] called and found me in despair about my own
confused affairs, which I never had had time to bring into any
order. The next day she brought my nephew to me, who promised
to fulfil all my wishes which I should have expressed on paper;
he begged me not to exert myself, for his father's sake, of
whom he believed _it would be the immediate death if anything
should happen to me_."

Afterwards she wrote:--