ust be who, watching one
star at a time, discovers the one in a million that moves, is apparent.
Chance, surely, must also come to his aid and rescue if he succeeds.

Herschel found his moving star, and at first mistook it for a comet.
Later, he and Caroline were agreed that it was in very truth their
long-looked-for planet. There are no proprietary rights in newly
discovered worlds--the reward is in the honor of the discovery, just as
the best recompense for a good deed lies in having done it.

The Royal Society was the recording station, as Kiel, Greenwich and
Harvard are now. Herschel made haste to get his new world on record
through his kind neighbor, Doctor Watson.

The Royal Society gave out the information, and soon various other
telescopes corroborated the discovery made by the Bath musician.
Herschel christened his new discovery "Georgium Sidus," in honor of the
King; but the star belonged as much to Germany and France as to England,
and astronomers abroad scouted the idea of peppering the heavens with
the names of nobodies.

Several astronomers suggested the name "Herschel," if the discoverer
would consent, but this he would not do. Doctor Bode then named the new
star "Uranus," and Uranus it is, although perhaps with any other name
't would shine as bright.

Herschel was forty-three years old when he discovered Uranus. He was
still a professional musician, and an amateur astronomer.

But it did not require much arguing on the part of Doctor Watson when he
presented Herschel's name for membership in the Royal Society for that
most respectable body of scholars to at once pass favorably on the
nomination. As one member in seconding the motion put it, "Herschel
honors us in accepting this membership, quite as much as we do him in
granting it."

And so the next paper presented by Herschel to the Royal Society appears
on the record signed "William Herschel, F.R.S."

Some time afterwards, it was to appear, "William Herschel, F.R.S., LL.D.
(Edinburgh)"; and then "Sir William Herschel, F.R.S., LL.D., D.C.L.
(Oxon)."

* * * * *

George the Third, in about the year Seventeen Hundred Eighty-two, had
invited his distinguished Hanoverian countryman to become an attache of
the Court with the title of "Astronomer to the King." The
Astronomer-Royal, in charge of the Greenwich Observatory, was one Doctor
Maskelyne, a man of much learning, a stickler for the fact, but with a
mustard-se