1. “On the Power of Penetrating into Space”: The Telescopes of William Herschel
2. James Sime, William Herschel and his work (New York, 1900), 122.
3. Agnes Clerk, The Herschels and modern astronomy (New York, 1895), 33. So too in his 1919 biography, Macpherson wrote that “the work of making telescopes for other observers, though lucrative, was in many respects a waste of time. Herschel had long contemplated the construction of a very large telescope, but this was impossible so long as his spare time was given to the manufacture of smaller instruments, the great majority of which passed into the possession of royal or aristocratic dabblers in astronomy and were practically mere ornaments”. Hector MacPherson, Herschel (London, 1919), 31.