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 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?”