Description | Family transcription of Sir John Herschel's original diary. The volume describes Herschel's scientific and social life, largely in London, where he had a town residence in Harley Street. Notes on Royal Mint business, increasingly despairing, throughout. On 25 January, Herschel sends a glass plate coated with gluton to Mr Derdgear [?] as a collodion substitute. He attends the Institution of Civil Engineers on 15 February to hear Erickson [John Ericcson] on the caloric engine, which leaves the audience 'mystified'. As entertainment, he praises Mrs Charles Kean's Lady Macbeth, seen on 18 April; and reads Baron Munchausen on 1 May. He visits and notes the behaviour of the 'Aztec children', Maximo and Bartola, on 6 August. Herschel describes (and draws) a double halo seen around a candle flame on 28 August. On dining at the Literary Club, he hears an anecdote about clairvoyance narrated by the Bishop of Oxford. Visiting Lady Lyell briefly on 18 November, Herschel remarks: 'The meeting with Men of Science is now accompanied to me with feelings too painful to prolong more than absolute good-breeding requires'. Occasional marginal drawings are copies of the originals.
With a note on the cover page '1853. See also for notes of other events (not entered in this copy of this diary) a small (black) Lett's diary, kept in the same drawer 1853. 18 June 1910 W.J.H.' [William James Herschel]. |