Upon the return of Dr. Burney to Chelsea, his astronomical project became his greatest amusement as well as occupation. In a memorandum upon its idea he writes:

“Very early in life I collected all the books I could attain upon this subject. I was already, therefore, in possession of a good number; to which I now added whatever I could procure from [Pg 250] France, as well as in England. And with these, having the free run of Sir Joseph Bankes’ scientific library, with that of the Royal Society, and of the Museum, I obtained such ample materials, that I took my daughter d’Arblay’s advice, and, in little more than a year from the time that I began the work, I had made a rough sketch of an historical and didactic Poem on Astronomy.”

This enterprise, shortly afterwards, so grew upon his fancy, that, to use again his own words,

“Every spare minute I now devote to astronomy and its history, which I try incessantly to versify, but find very difficult to render poetical. This probably, however, may be the case with most didactic poems.”

In another letter to the Hermitage on this subject, in which he describes his various whirls of business and engagements, he sportively cries:

“And, after fulfilling them all, instead of going to sleep, like a mere dull mortal, I take a flight upon Pegasus to the moon, or to some planet, or fixed star.”

And, a little later, he writes:

“Do you know that I have had the assurance to mention my planetary undertaking to Herschel, at the Royal Society? and he encourages me by liking my plan, and wishing me to go on. I am soon, therefore, to read and talk over my manuscript with him. I desire very much indeed to have his sanction for the scientific part of my characters and opinions of the most renowned astronomers. He himself, after Newton, will be my Achilles and Æneas, c’est À dire, l’heros de la piÈce. The discoveries which he has made, by his improved specula, exceed in number those of any one astronomer that ever existed. Galileo discovered the four satellites of Jupiter, and Cassini four of the five satellites of Saturn; but what are these compared with a new planet? an additional satellite to Jupiter, two satellites to Saturn, and myriads of fixed stars, double as well as single, which his own telescope only could discover?”