Going back at least to Robert Hooke (Posthumous works, ed. by WallerRichard (London, 1705), 506), and including Wright, Kant and Lambert.
2.
Tobias Mayer's Opera inedita, trans, and ed. by ForbesE. G. (London, 1971), 112. Forbes suggests (p. 44) that Herschel succeeded where Mayer failed because Herschel opted to consider only Mayer's brightest stars, believing them to be the nearest; but we shall see that this is not the explanation.
3.
The list is omitted in the English translation. See ref. 10 below.
4.
Op. cit., 110–12; translation by Prof. Forbes.
5.
de La LandeJ., “Mémoire sur les taches du Soleil, et sur sa rotation”Mémoires de l'Académie royale des Sciences for 1776 (Paris, 1779), 457–514, pp. 513–14.
6.
HerschelW., “On the proper motion of the Sun and solar system; with an account of several changes that have happened among the fixed stars since the time of Mr. Flamsteed”, Philosophical transactions, lxxiii (1783), 247–83.
7.
FergusonJames, Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles (2nd edn, London, 1757), 237.
8.
HerschelW., “On the parallax of the fixed stars”, Philosophical transactions, lxxii (1782), 82–111 (read 6 December 1781).
9.
Ibid., 98.
10.
Opera inedita Tobiae Mayeri, I, ed. by LichtenbergG. C. (Göttingen, 1775), 80–81.
11.
Three volumes of the second edition appeared in Paris in 1771, and the fourth (supplementary) volume in 1781. By that time Mayer's Opera inedita had appeared and Lalande was able to include a select list of Mayer ‘proper motions’ in his §2756.
12.
Most of his rough sheets were destroyed after his death, but a page of jottings taken from Lalande survives, after which Herschel makes the (careless) comment that “All these motions [listed by Lalande] seem to favour a direction of ⊙ towards α Draconis” (Royal Astronomical Society W. Herschel MSS, 7/14.27), which suggests he had not yet analysed the Maskelyne data.
13.
Royal Astronomical Society W. Herschel MSS, 4/19.1.
14.
Ibid.
15.
Maskelyne to Herschel, 15 March 1783 (Royal Astronomical Society W. Herschel MSS, 1/M.22). On the back of the letter Herschel has drawn a sketch to try and verify Maskelyne's assertion as to the effect on β Cygni of a solar apex at λ Herculis.
16.
Ibid.
17.
Aubert to Herschel, 7 March 1783 (Royal Astronomical Society W. Herschel MSS, 1/A.11): “I sent you yesterday by the Windsor Coach from the Bell Savage Inn, Ludgate Hill, a Box, directed to you at Datchet, containing my Atlas Coelestis, the book Mr Cavendish sent me for you & Mayer's Opera Inedita…. We finished last night your Paper on ye motion of our whole System it pleased me much & I think you bring very strong proofs in favour of your Ideas the paper seemed to give general satisfaction it was much commended after the meeting & I wish you joy of the rapid increase & accumulation of your fame. …”.
18.
First published as “Ueber die Fortrückung unsers Sonnen-Systems”, Astronomisches Jahrbuch für das Jahr 1786 (Berlin, 1783), 259–60. Prévost's apex had the same declination as Herschel's, namely 25°.
19.
Herschel, “On the proper motion of the Sun and solar system”, footnote added on p. 273.
