Miss Caroline Lucretia Herschel went to England as soon as her brother became special astronomer to the king.  She received the appellation there of Assistant Astronomer, with a moderate salary.  From that moment she unreservedly devoted herself to the service of her brother, happy in contributing night and day to his rapidly increasing scientific reputation.  Miss Caroline shared in all the night-watches of her brother, with her eye constantly on the clock, and the pencil in her hand; she made all the calculations without exception; she made three or four copies of all the observations in separate registers; cooerdinated, classed, and analyzed them.  If the scientific world saw with astonishment how Herschel’s works succeeded each other with unexampled rapidity during so many years, they were specially indebted for it to the ardour of Miss Caroline.  Astronomy, moreover, has been directly enriched by several comets through this excellent and respectable lady.  After the death of her illustrious brother, Miss Caroline retired to Hanover, to the house of Jahn Dietrich Herschel, a musician of high reputation, and the only surviving brother of the astronomer.

William Herschel died without pain on the 23d of August 1822, aged eighty-three.  Good fortune and glory never altered in him the fund of infantine candour, inexhaustible benevolence, and sweetness of character, with which nature had endowed him.  He preserved to the last both his brightness of mind and vigour of intellect.  For some years Herschel enjoyed with delight the distinguished success of his only son,[16] Sir John Herschel.  At his last hour he sunk to rest with the pleasing conviction that his beloved son, heir of a great name, would not allow it to fall into oblivion, but adorn it with fresh lustre, and that great discoveries would honour his career also.  No prediction of the illustrious astronomer has been more completely verified.

The English journals gave an account of the means adopted by the family of William Herschel, for preserving the remains of the great telescope of thirty-nine English feet (twelve metres) constructed by that celebrated astronomer.

The metal tube of the instrument carrying at one end the recently cleaned mirror of four feet ten inches in diameter, has been placed horizontally in the meridian line, on solid piers of masonry, in the midst of the circle, where formerly stood the mechanism requisite for manoeuvring the telescope.  The first of January 1840, Sir John Herschel, his wife, their children, seven in number, and some old family servants, assembled at Slough.  Exactly at noon, the party walked several times in procession round the instrument; they then entered the tube of the telescope, seated themselves on benches that had been prepared for the purpose, and sung a requiem, with English words composed by Sir John Herschel himself.  After their exit, the illustrious family ranged themselves around the great tube, the opening of which was then hermetically sealed.  The day concluded with a party of intimate friends.