The word widowhood, from whatever angle of observation it maybe viewed, has about it a dull, bleak, uncomfortable aspect. Clouds encompass it. Wo englooms it. Loneliness isolates it from social comfort, and befogs it amidst lowering disquiet. It floats amidst tears on a dusky day, like a solitary buoy on the salt sea.

We speak of widowhood which is really such. There are philosophers, who are willing to wager that the solitary state is the most delightful of existence. To them, wedlock is a fast bind fast find condition, in which two persons are confined by a clerical jailor, who condemns them to imprisonment for life, and then throws away the key. They transform “wedlock” to “padlock;” and though there is no parautopticism about the wards and chambers of affection, they consider the matrimonial lock, one which may bid defiance to the most dexterous Hobbs. Yet we know that to every heart there is a master-key. Lucky is he who keeps it in his own possession without a necessity for its use; and happy is he who needs not the services of some legal lock-picker to release him ere the coming of the great skeleton-key carrier—Death.

But sentimental prosing is not our purpose. Widowhood has its bright side, though many look too steadily at its darkest aspect. Widows are, according to the venerable Weller, gifted with innumerable methods of circumventing unsuspicious men; and the great inquiry is—How do they manage those blandishments?

From the institution of debating societies down to the present era of Spirit Rapping and feminine right conventions, “the influence of woman,” has been a favorite topic with anniversary orators and declamatory speakers. They have spent vast stores of eloquence in showing her influence as a sister. They have proved how, in her days of pinafores, she obligingly devoured her brother’s candies, or took more than her share of his bread and butter. They have pleasantly adverted to the sisterly affection which, in more mature age, was content to accept or demand the ciceronage of brother to parties or concerts, if no other beau was available. With a very delicate touch they have skimmed over that important period when the love for the brother is all given up to the husband, and have judiciously omitted any reference to sisterhood after wifehood commenced. The influence of wives has, of course, been so thoroughly demonstrated, that all that can be said on that subject are axioms. The privileges of a matron to love her husband and adore her baby, are subjects which have been rhapsodized over in glowing poetry, and treated substantially, and with becoming dignity in unimpassioned prose. Rhymers, dreamers, and orators, have devoted words in endless profusion to the influence of woman, as sister, daughter, wife and mother; but there has never been a full crop of elogiums harvested in relation to her influence as a widow. The singular dearth of cotemporary literature upon this subject, will be acknowledged by bibliopoles. The reason is one which cannot be satisfactorily demonstrated. It may be that literary people are disposed to consider that widows are like sturgeons, who have merely leaped out of the placid current of matrimony for a moment or two, and who will, by the gravity of their wo, inevitably fall back into the connubial tide. Such a simile may do in some cases, but will scarcely hold water upon trial. It is a metaphysical sieve, and may catch many widows in its meshes, but some will inevitably pass through its interstices. Some unfortunate “relicts” are for a long time like fish out of the stream; but they have sufficient determination to keep alive, until they manage to become again immersed in matrimony. Nevertheless, the desire to return to their “destined element” does exist, in many cases, and that very desire forms the great constituent in the influence of widows.

The manner in which this authority is exercised differs according to circumstances. Some of the unfortunate fair ones who have lost their mates have attractions in the shape of weighty dower. Men of a certain age have keen noses for such charms; and when the widow suspects it, she often leads her importunate admirer by that organ, and by a dexterous management of the mystery of courtship, which is called “getting a bean on a string.” Once the gentleman is secured by that means, the widow takes into her hand the whip of management, and compels the poor beau to trot a weary round in an arena which extends its charmed circle about her.

If the French system of espionage, which is now a constituent of society in Louis Napoleon’s dominions, were in vogue here, we are sure that the index of the chief of police would bear opposite to the name of each widow the word “dangerous!” And what can be more threatening to the liberty of a too susceptible man, than a young, accomplished, and fascinating widow? What is bashful maidenhood, with its cherry lips and monosyllabic sentences, to buxom widowhood, with its matured development, sensible ideas, and frank manners? What other witcheries are there about young misses than a taste for ice creams and giddy companionship? Those fascinations fade away when the widow charms us with the certainty that she knows how to make the pot boil, and has a horror of boy beaus. Maidenhood is poetical and theoretical, widowhood is sensible and practical. The young lady, before marriage, is unsteady, indecisive, and capricious. The widow is certain, firm, and self-possessed. The girl scarcely knows her own mind, but the widow not only understands herself but all her male acquaintances. The young lady is greedy of admiration, exacting in her demands, and expects from her lover an obsequiousness of attention which cannot be too excessive. The widow knows that men may admire without adulation, and love fondly without abjectly suing for a return of affection. She knows, also, that those who daring the days of courtship are compelled to excessive complaisance, generally revenge themselves after marriage by neglect and indifference. The fact is, the widow knows something of mankind by actual experience, the maiden has little but romance to tutor her.

Philosophy like this, must have given force to the observations of the venerable parent of Weller the younger—and he was justified by personal experience, in maintaining the position that “widders,” are “werry dangerous.” The world has long since phraseologically settled it, that men “fall in love.” This presupposes that the tender passion is gotten like a broken leg, altogether by accident. The language of Cupid’s surgery is rich in terms which are descriptive of sudden casualties. We know that many a poor fellow has been “shot through the heart” by a pair of eyes, and the records of divers bachelor coroner’s juries held upon unfortunate Benedicts show that woman

May smile, and smile, and murder while they smile,

having committed upon determined celibacy a grievous homicide, or at least a manslaughter. But although love may come to some in the balls of optical revolvers; although, at times, a big whiskered fellow may be charmed out of his single life by the smile of a fair damsel—as a pretty little tomtit is overcome by the glamour of a black-snake—we must not forget, that idiomatic expression hath it, that men “fall in love.” To “fall in love!” what an unhappy catastrophe! To be walking along upon the firm ground of bachelorism, but now, and hey presto! to suddenly find one’s self “over head and ears in love,” like a fly in a cream-jug! Distressing calamity! Who may ever be able to scramble out of such delicious danger; and how many are there that once in are not able to swim a single stroke? There is also this peculiarity about an accident of the sort, that it strongly exemplifies the old adage, that “misery loves company.” The youth who, gazing fondly on Maria Jane, misses his footing, and souses at once in love, cannot help himself. If Maria Jane, pitying his condition, drops him a line, (through the post-office,) or encourages him with hopes—which are generally anchors—it will not do the least bit of good. No! she must be his life-preserver—and unless, in regarding his struggles, she gets too near the brink and herself falls in love, there will be no help for the poor bachelor. But if this casualty does happen, and both are in love, it is wonderful to see how easily they float along. Each helps the other, and in a very short space of time, they are quite comfortable. But it is not every one who “falls in love;” and herein, as we shall shortly show, lies the superiority of widows over spinsters. Some get into the trouble very slowly. At first they survey the ocean of affection with as placid an air as a cosmopolite would gaze upon a mill-pond. Neither admiration nor detestation rules their thoughts. They are altogether indifferent; and although they see many who are treading water, or floating or swimming along with the tide, they feel no anxiety to join in such aquatic feats. But at length the diversion tempts them, and they cautiously take off their shoes and stockings, and venture in a little way. The shore shelves gently, so they think—why should they not venture more? Little by little they progress, until suddenly they step from their sure footing, and are over their heads in a moment without cork or spatterdocks to rely upon. They may struggle against the strong current, but there is no assistance, and they are certain to be carried off by the strong tide.

Difficulties like these are entirely obviated by the widow. She does not suffer a man to fall in love, or to wade in, but she catches the admirer by the hand, drags him at once to deep water, and in a moment he is “out of his pains.” He is not suffered to stand shilly-shally; he is plumped at once souse into Love’s Pacific ocean, and carried along with the billows until he lands at Hymen’s Golden Gate. The maiden may doubt, consider, resolve, and hesitate, whilst the poor fellow who is in love, seeks in vain for a floating timber to support him, but the widow is generally willing to help him out of trouble by getting in it herself, and going along with him hand-in-hand.

These apophthegms may seem too general; and it may be said that there is a tendency in our observations to draw a picture of widowhood by a silhouette of a young widow who is free from incumbrances. This is partly true. There is a marked difference between the widow whose matrimonial interests ended with the grave, and she whose reminiscences of wedlock are daily revived by surviving children. The former is free from earthly ties—she is a girl again, knowing enough about matrimony to have no objection to a second experiment. The latter feels dear bonds which should attach her to her lonely state, and cause her to doubt the policy of prejudicing the interests of her children by rashly assuming new vows. If she is gained, it must be by direct courtship, whilst the young widow is always ready to meet an admirer half way.

But even young widows are of different dispositions. They are all admirers of matrimony, and candidates for second husbands, but they choose various means—according to their inclinations. They may be divided into three great classes—the gay—the sentimental—and the sad.

The gay young widow is like cream candy, a vast improvement upon the crude flour and sugar of maidenhood. The young girl is coy, even in her giddiness; she considers love as an exquisite romance—a mysterious state of happiness—which she desires, yet fears. Hence she is most cautious when she would be most earnest; and whilst she hopes to gain the heart she covets, she often perversely adopts a course which is calculated to alienate that heart forever. With the exception of trifling fops who have not attained the age of maturity—although they may vote and shave—men are earnest, straightforward, and sincere. If they seek the love of a woman, they do so openly and with manly frankness. The young girl may coquette, or flirt with the man who adores her; she may wring his heart with bitter agony; she may show her power, and he may acknowledge it, but he will lose some respect for her—though he bows to her influence. He is honest and sincere. She, perhaps, admits it, but trifles with him. How many young ladies have lost the esteem of those who would have loved and cherished them for life by mere thoughtlessness or caprice. The young widow understands men better. She is rarely a flirt. She can distinguish between the honest lover and the mere admirer. With the latter she may trifle, because she understands him. The former, if not acceptable, will not be allowed to deceive himself; and if he is liked, will be speedily drawn onward to his own happiness. The gay widow is lively, of course. She is fascinating, and she knows human nature. If she “sets her cap” at any particular gentleman, he might as well yield. He cannot hold out against the artillery of charms which are brought against him. He may surrender at discretion, and be led off, a captive, to be confined permanently in silken fetters. All the little fascinations of manner which the belle may possess, but knows not how to use, are by the widow managed with the skill of a veteran. Her eyes are by turns entreating, languishing, merry, or devilish. Her smiles are moulded to bewitch and to mystify. Her manners are easy, and pleasant, and her voice is melodious with rapture, or heart-touching with sincerity. Then, too, she is so lively and yet so sensible, that the “seven senses” of celibacy (two more than the general complement awarded to married people) are quite unable to withstand so many attractions.

The sentimental widow is quite as generous as her livelier sister. She believes in romance and gushing affection. She is lonely after her great loss, and would like another mate. After her first dear man was buried, she felt like a lobster which has parted with a claw, and she retired from gay life until nature, or good luck, should furnish her with the means of reparation. Her heart is buried with her husband, but she considers it only as a seed which in good time will spring up again and blossom. If she weeps, she does it with a gentle sorrow, like a slight sprinkle on a sunshiny day. Her sky has its clouds, but the cerulean of anticipation lies beyond, and gives a pleasant aspect to the mists of sadness. The gay widow laughs as if she had never been married; the sentimental one smiles, but evidently remembers.

The one pretends that she is gay because she is free; the other is cheerful, but hopes to become more cheerful in time. The first audaciously declares that marriage is tyranny, and hopes that no man will ever come near her! the second thinks mournfully upon the past, and wonders whether she “will ever have another Charles Augustus;” yet the sentimentalist mingles with the gay world, a sober votary of pleasure. If she dances, it is but a plain cotillion; and she is shocked when the lively Maria dashes out in a giddy polka. All such things are vanities to the sentimental widow. She thinks how happy she was with her dear departed Charles Augustus, and hopes that she will soon be as happy again.

The sad widow is, for a long time after her bereavement, a sighing pattern of inconsolable grief. The atmosphere of her home is rainy with tears, and when abroad she is cloudy. Yet as time wears on, it is evident that the forty days and forty nights of affliction’s great deluge must go by, and at length the sorrowful widow will look for the appearance of the sun of cheerfulness, and trust that with it will come a rain beau. The gradual assumption of cheerfulness begins to make itself visible in her costume. Half mourning assumes the place of sombre weeds. On her face smiles occasionally chase away the lingering vestiges of regret. The spring of calmness has come, and hyacinthine blossoms of hope struggle up from the sodden desolation of wintry bleakness. Little by little the sad widow becomes resigned to her great loss, and gradually she learns to think that it may be repaired by a new matrimonial gain. Yet she is slow in assuming the garniture of happiness. She may occasionally be coaxed out into the world, and even tempted to attend a party or ball; but she does not forget that she is a widow. She is in the world, but yet not of it. She demeans herself as becomes the lone relict of the late Mr. Sad, and does not like the gayety of Mrs. Lively or the composure of Mrs. Sentiment.

If the persevering Mr. Nosey should approach the trio of widows in the hope of obtaining a partner for the next set, Mrs. Lively may suddenly put on an affectation of grave coyness, Mrs. Sentiment may be gracefully leaning her cheek against her fan whilst thinking of her dear lamented Charles Augustus, but Mrs. Sad will show surprise that the forward Mr. Nosey should dare to presume that they would dance when there are so many “young chits” who have not partners for the dance. But Mrs. L. has no care for these things, and in a very short time she is treading a measure to lively music as if she had never known a single sorrow.

There are so many peculiarities about widowhood, that it would require volumes to treat properly upon the subject. Mathematics might be called in to cipher out the problem of the elder Weller, as to how many times more fascinating is a widow than a maiden—but figures would not satisfy us. We would be sure to continue the subject by the further query—What is a widow like? And the result of all the cogitations might be summed up into the grand deduction—that widows are like gunpowder, always sure to go off when fired by a match.

ASTRONOMY.

ERA OF NEWTON, HALLEY, AND HERSCHELL.

There is no great operation of which we are cognizant, by which Nature at a single bound perfects her marvelous productions. It is only by a combination of instruments operating generally through a series of years. The ultimate result is reached by a progressive advance, to which a number of artificers contribute. The cedar, on whose boughs the snow rests and the fowls nestle, is the work of centuries; and the soil that laps its roots, the air that stirs its branches, the light that plays upon its crest, and the rain that drops upon its foliage, minister to the final development of the original cone. In like manner the social and political changes that have improved the tone of society, elevated the condition of nations, and endowed them with an enduring liberty, have not been accomplished in the twinkling of an eye, or by individual intelligence and will. Popular history may embalm the name of some distinguished patriot or philanthropist, as having been the agent is rescuing a country from the yoke of arbitrary power, and it may record a crisis of revolution confined within the limits of a year or a day; but a comprehensive view of such occurrences will embrace a time of preparation, and crown with honor a variety of laborers, though to one may be due the glory of the sun, and to another the glory of the stars. The signature of the edict that dethroned the heathenism of the ancient civilized world occupied the imperial hand a moment’s space, but the work of apostles, martyrs, and confessors, with the toils and sufferings of ages, are prominent in the picture. So the great demonstrations and achievements of science have transpired by slow degrees, and yield a distinction to be divided among a fellowship of kindred spirits, rather than assigned exclusively to a solitary example of mental prowess. If Keppler discovered the general laws of the universe, the basis of the discovery was laid by Tycho; and the marvelous Napier contributed essentially to the issue obtained, by the invention of the logarithms, an admirable artifice, as it has been justly called, which, by reducing to a few days the labor of many months, doubles the life of the astronomer, and saves him the errors and disgust connected with long calculations. If Newton developed the cause of those laws, he started to his grand result from a point expressly prepared by Keppler, and left the solution of the problem imperfect, for Laplace to finish. It is obviously in wise accordance with the happiness of mankind, that no nation possesses a monopoly of talent and fame, that many of the most remarkable efforts of human genius owe a debt of obligation to the accomplishments of genius at another era, and in a different clime. The fact proclaims the affinity of the species, between whom the mighty deep may roll, or the mountain rampart rise. It evinces, too, their mutual dependence, and will be hailed as a motive by the considerate mind, to the maintenance of universal amity.

To Hevelius, one of the merchant princes of Dantzic, an example of the close alliance of commerce with the fine arts and science which runs through the page of history, we owe the first accurate delineation of the lunar surface, the discovery of a libration in longitude; by his observation of the comet of 1664, he further corroborated the view previously taken, that such bodies are not sublunary, and approximated to the nature of their orbits. His contemporary Huygens, after effecting various improvements in the telescope, discovered one of the satellites of Saturn, that which is now termed the fourth, and obtained an insight into the singular structure of the planet, an inexplicable appearance to all preceding observers. An anagram, in the year 1656, announced to the world the following sentence by a transposition of letters, annulo cingitur, tenui, plano, nusquam cohærenta, ad eclipticam, inclinatio—the planet is surrounded with a ring, thin, plane, nowhere adhering, and inclined to the ecliptic. He justly observes, in a letter to his brother: “If any one shall gravely tell me that I have spent my time idly in a vain and fruitless inquiry, after what I can never become sure of; the answer is, that at this rate, he would put down all natural philosophy, as far as it concerns itself in searching into the nature of things. In such noble and sublime studies as these, it is a glory to arrive at probability, and the search itself rewards the pains. But besides the nobleness and pleasure of the studies, may we not be so bold as to say, they are no small help to the advancement of wisdom and morality?” The discovery of the great nebula in Orion was accidentally made by Huygens in the year 1656. Cassini, nurtured in France, soon afterward added four more satellites to the system of Saturn, those now called the first, second, third, and fifth, and he detected the black list, or dark, elliptical line bisecting the surface of the ring, and dividing it into two. Astronomy is under immense obligations to a measure adopted by the courts of France and England at nearly the same period, for the patronage of scientific associations, and the founding of national observatories. The Royal Society of London was incorporated by charter in the year 1662, and numbered among its early members Boyle, Hooke, Wallis, Ward, Newton, and Flamstead. The Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, was founded in the year 1666, and enrolled among its first members Auzout, Picard, Roberval, and Richer. Upon the invitation of Louis XIV. Huygens left Holland to become a royal academician, but being a Protestant, the revocation of the edict of Nantes ultimately compelled him to return to his native soil. The edict did not affect Cassini, a Catholic foreigner similarly invited; and to him, with his son and grandson, the French academy owes much of its early distinction. Besides his before named discoveries, he determined the periods of rotation of the principal planets, and observed the elliptical form of Jupiter’s disc, owing to compression at the poles.

Roëmer, the inventor of the transit instrument with which he made observations from the window of his house, rendered no unimportant service by showing that the instruments need not be fixed on high towers: he also discovered, in the year 1675, the interesting and hitherto unsuspected fact, of the progressive transmission of light through space, and the appreciable velocity with which it travels. This was attained by a series of careful observations of the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites. It was found, by comparing the times of immersion of the satellites in the planet’s shadow and emersion from it, with the times calculated from the laws of their movements, that there was an acceleration or retardation of the phenomena by a few minutes, plainly dependent upon the variations of the earth’s distance from Jupiter; for

the retardation was observed to be the greatest when the earth was in that part of its orbit most remote from him. The diameter of the orbit of the earth being a hundred and ninety millions of miles, we are more remote from Jupiter, by the whole of that distance, at one time than at another; as, when the earth is in its orbit at a, its distance is greater from c than when at b by the interval between the two points. But notwithstanding this immense addition of space, or any conceivable increase, an eclipse would be observed to occur no later at the one than at the other, if light were propagated instantaneously. Roëmer found, however, a difference of eleven minutes to exist, which he afterward estimated at fourteen, but which the precision of modern astronomy has fixed at sixteen minutes and a quarter. This determines the progressive motion of light, and the rate of its velocity. It requires time for its transmission; and flying over the diameter of the earth’s orbit in sixteen and a quarter minutes gives it a velocity of twelve millions of miles a minute, or upward of a hundred and ninety thousand miles a second. Thus, in the eighth part of a second, it accomplishes the passage of a space equal to the equatorial circumference of our globe: yet so vast is the system to which we belong, that this swift-winged messenger, which requires no more than two hours to travel from the central sun to the farthest planet, could not dart through the intervening solitudes between us and the nearest of the stars under a period of five years. Notwithstanding the velocity of the rays of light, which travel more than fifteen hundred thousand times faster than a cannon ball, experiment has not yet been able to detect that they have any impulsive power. The surmise has, however, been thrown out—and it is not improbable—that the attrition of the solar beams with the terrestrial surface may have some connection with the phenomena of heat.

The national observatory of England—the noblest institution in the world for the extent and exactitude of its astronomical tables, and their practical value in the art of navigation—was originated by the spread of foreign commerce. The growth of colonies across the Atlantic, together with the establishment of relations with India, rendered it of the first importance to have an easy and accurate method of finding the longitude at sea. A plan was proposed, founded upon the principle now in use, of observing the lunar motions and distances during a voyage, and comparing them with a previous home calculation, thus ascertaining the difference between home time and time at sea, from whence the difference of longitude is readily deduced. A reward being sought by the proposer from the government of Charles II. it was referred to a commission to report upon the merits of the scheme. Flamstead, one of the commissioners, at once decided against its practical utility, on the ground of the inaccuracy both of the lunar tables and of the positions of the stars in existing catalogues, which only a lengthened course of observation could rectify. The king, declaring that his pilots and sailors should not want such assistance, immediately instituted the office of astronomer royal, and determined upon founding an observatory. The site—selected by Wren—was a commanding eminence in Greenwich Park, in former times the seat of Duke Humphrey’s tower, within view of all vessels passing along the Thames; a spot which Piazzi was accustomed to call the “paradise” for an observer; being free from a fluctuating atmospheric refraction which annoyed him in the climate of Sicily. The foundation-stone was laid August 10th, 1675. An original inscription, still existing, states the design of the building—the benefit of astronomy and navigation. The observatory has been successively under the superintendence of Flamstead, Halley, Bradley, Bliss, Maskelyne, Pond, and Airy, its present head, with assistants for its proper management. It is not a spot devoted to star-gazing, and the general observance of celestial phenomena, but essentially a place of business, carrying on by day and by night, when the weather permits, those observations of the sun, moon, planets, and principal stars, passing the meridian, from which the nautical almanac derives its information. This has been done with admirable regularity for a long series of years, nor has Europe any data comparable with the Greenwich tables. During the interval in which the office of astronomer royal is necessarily vacant, the business of the observatory proceeds; and that interval is now less than formerly. Thirty-three days elapsed between Bradley’s last observation and Bliss’s first; fifty-three between Bliss’s last and Maskelyne’s first; four between Maskelyne’s last and Pond’s first; and two between Pond’s last and Airy’s first. It has been asserted by Baron Zach, that, if the other observatories had never existed, our astronomical tables would be equally perfect; and Delambre, when delivering an éloge on Maskelyne before the Institute of France, remarked, that if by some grand revolution in the moral or physical world, the whole of the monuments of existing science should be swept away, leaving only the Greenwich observations and some methods of computation, it would be possible to reconstruct from these materials the entire edifice of modern astronomy.

A few years ago it was resolved by the Lords of the Admiralty, that the time should be shown at Greenwich once in every day of the year. This is done by means of a large black ball which surmounts the north-western turret of the observatory. The ball, seen in the vignette, is elevated by machinery to the index, showing the four cardinal points; and, the instant it begins to descend, marks the mean solar time to be 1 P.M. Being plainly observable from the Thames, the arrangement affords a convenient opportunity for seamen to regulate their chronometers and clocks.

Greenwich Observatory.

The fame of Flamstead, the first astronomer royal, does not rest upon any brilliant discovery, but upon an enlightened view of the importance of accurate observation, and the unwearied zeal and industry with which he pursued it. A better representation of him cannot be given than by supposing Tycho Brahe in possession of a telescope, and the adaptation of it to other instruments. Laplace calls him “one of the greatest observers that has ever appeared,” and Delambre remarks, “his name will be eternally cited like those of Hipparchus and Tycho, both of whom, as an observer, he surpassed.” Born in the neighborhood of Derby, and brought up in limited circumstances in that town, he wrought his way to a station at the head of practical astronomy, and established a continental reputation by dint of strong natural genius and unremitting application, in the face of great discouragements. Bad health was a frequent attendant upon him all his days. The patronage of the crown did not screen him from the want of adequate resources, while from several of his scientific contemporaries he encountered dishonorable treatment. The salary attached to his office, then a hundred a year, was often in arrears. Instruments were promised him by the government, but he had to find his own, commencing his duties in 1676 with an iron sextant of seven feet radius, two clocks, and a quadrant of three feet radius, with two telescopes, which he brought with him from Derby. With these instruments he could only measure the relative positions of the stars, and it was not until 1689 that he succeeded in constructing at his own expense a mural arc to determine their absolute places. From this period, through an interval of thirty years, his time was spent in valuable labors, the fruit of which appears in the formation of a catalogue of three thousand stars, and a vast collection of lunar and planetary observations, from which Newton derived material assistance in forming his lunar theory. Yet, as if some annoyance must follow him to the grave, upon his death in 1719, the government of the day attempted to claim his instruments as public property, because found in the national observatory. The name of Flamstead, lost in a great measure to public recollection, or only dimly recognized as one of those who, with “lamp at midnight hour

in some high, lonely tower,

——may oft outwatch the Bear,

With thrice great Hermes”—

was revived a few years ago, and acquired notoriety at the expense of Newton and Halley’s fame. It fell to the lot of Mr. Baily to discover a large number of his letters in private hands, with others, and a manuscript autobiography, upon the shelves of the library in the observatory; and, upon their publication in 1835, by order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, some painful and unexpected disclosures were made. It may be admitted that Flamstead exaggerates his own case, that his temper was irascible, that he did not appreciate the value of Newton’s theory, and over-estimated the importance of his own labors; yet, after having allowed these elements of correction full force, the conclusion is sufficiently plain, that he was most injuriously treated, and that much of the moral distinction with which posterity has crowned the head of Newton, is altogether misplaced. His deep obligations to Flamstead’s lunar observations are acknowledged in the first edition of the Principia, but carefully suppressed in the second, apparently when vindictive feeling had begun to operate; and, in fact, nothing is more remarkable than the opinion universally entertained of the meek and placable disposition of the great philosopher, and the want of temper and honor displayed in his dealings with Flamstead. The truth appears to be, that as when we view a country beneath a brilliant sky and a balmy atmosphere, we are apt to frame our impressions of the people in harmony with the beauty of the scene; so, to the early admirers of Newton, his intellectual greatness invested with fictitious lustre his private character, and the infirmities of the man were lost sight of in the glory of the sage.

But however much we may take from the moral greatness usually attributed to Newton—and a considerable abatement is unquestionably necessary—his reputation for wonderful sagacity and grasp of mind is incapable of impeachment. The course of events has only served to render more conspicuous that sublime intelligence by which he unraveled the mechanism of the heavens, and establish more indisputably his claim to be regarded as the architect of physical astronomy. To determine the motions of the heavenly bodies was the work of Keppler: to explain and demonstrate the causes of those motions was the achievement of Newton. So far, however, from gaining universal assent when first proposed, his theory was ill understood, slightly appreciated, or altogether rejected by numbers of scientific men; and—especially on the continent—it very slowly won its way to notice and confidence. Newton survived the publication of the Principia forty years, and at the time of his death—according to Voltaire—it had not twenty readers out of the country of its production. It was not until the mutual perturbations of the planets began to occupy the attention of the continental philosophers, that his theory was fully admitted abroad, and the work in which it was developed took the rank it has since occupied, preëminent—in the words of Laplace—above all the productions of the human mind. It is a common, but vulgar error, to suppose the merit of our countryman to lie in conceiving the idea of the attraction of gravitation. That idea had been suggested to many minds long before his time, and the impression had been created that such a power in nature was the cause of the planetary motions. Thus Keppler surmised an attractive force to reside in the sun, producing these movements; and he even threw out the conjecture that this force diminishes in proportion to the square of the distance of the body on which it was exerted. Borelli and Hooke, also, distinctly developed the influence of gravity; and both referred the orbits of the planets to the doctrine of attraction combining with their own proper motions to produce curvilinear movements. What really distinguished Newton, was not the idea of gravity as the principle of attachment between the different members of the solar system, but proving it to be so. He succeeded vague surmise upon the point with mathematical demonstration: explained and applied the laws of the force—an accomplishment which crowns him with honor above all his rivals; inasmuch as he who works a mine, and distributes its wealth through society, is incomparably in advance of him who has merely apprehended its existence, but failed in gaining access to its treasures.

The manor-house of Woolsthorpe, a few miles from Grantham, seated in a little valley near the source of the Witham, was the scene of Newton’s birth. Popular tradition reports, that the fall of an apple from a tree, in the orchard belonging to this house, was the mustard-seed out of which ultimately grew the grand theory of universal gravitation, and the story is not without a leaven of truth. It is certain that, to avoid the plague which ravaged England in 1666, Newton retired from Cambridge; and, when sitting alone, in his garden at Woolsthorpe, his thoughts were directed to that remarkable power which causes all bodies to descend toward the centre of the earth. The supposition presented itself, that as this power extends to the highest altitudes of the earth’s surface, it probably extends much farther into space; so that even the moon may gravitate toward the earth, and be balanced in her orbit by the combined force of attraction and the centrifugal force implied in her motion. If this were true, the planets might be supposed to gravitate toward the sun, and to be restrained thereby from flying off under the action of the centrifugal force. Sixteen years rolled away before this beautiful hypothesis was verified, and difficulties arose in testing it, which seemed to disprove it altogether. It was necessary to calculate the force of gravity at the surface of the earth; to estimate its diminished energy at an increased distance; and, after having found the law of the diminution, to ascertain whether the phenomena of the lunar motions corresponded proportionably with those of falling bodies at the terrestrial surface. Assuming the force of gravity to vary inversely as the square of the distance, it followed that, at the distance of the moon, it would be about 3600 times less than at the surface of the earth. The problem, therefore, to be solved was, whether the versed sine of an arc described by the moon—which measures the space through which in the same time she would fall to the earth, if abandoned to the action of gravity—would be 3600 times less than the space through which in the same time a heavy body falls, at the earth’s surface,

A B being the arc of the moon’s orbit, c d the sine of the arc, and e f the versed sine. After a careful study of the lunar observations supplied by Flamstead, and a series of calculations—displaying unexampled originality and industry—Newton fully demonstrated that the versed sine of an arc described by the moon in one minute, was equal to the space traversed in descent by a heavy body at the surface of the earth in one second—the exact proportion that ought to exist, according to the modification to which the intensity of gravity is subject by variation of distance.

The first certain gleam of this grand conclusion obtained by Newton, is said so to have overpowered him, that he was obliged to suspend his calculations, and call in the aid of a friend, to finish the last few arithmetical computations. He saw the important relations of the demonstration—the planets wheeling round the sun—the satellites round the planets—the far wandering comets returning to the source of light in obedience to the law of gravitation: a result sufficient to throw the successful discoverer into nervous excitement. It is clear that, if a body be projected into space, it will proceed in the direction of the original impulse, and with a uniform velocity, forever—supposing no obstacle to impede its course. But the combination of two antagonistic forces will produce a resulting motion in a diagonal direction.

Suppose the straight lines A B, to represent the direction in which the earth would travel under the influence of the projectile force, which launched it into universal space: the straight lines A S, are those it would describe at any point of its orbit, if surrendered to the influence of the sun’s attraction. The primitive impulse is, however, checked by the solar attraction, and the latter by the former; so, that while the earth—if abandoned to either—would describe A B, or A S, the effect of their joint influence incessantly acting is to deflect it from both, and produce a curved path. The cause perpetually operating, the effect is constant—and hence the formation of the terrestrial orbit; and the cause extending to the other bodies in the system, the planetary orbs are deflected from their natural rectilinear paths, and pursue a circuit round the common centre. The force of attraction is, however, proportional to the quantity of matter, and the proximity of the attracting body. Like light, the power of gravitation is weakened by diffusion, and diminishes as the square of the distance increases. This square is the product of a number multiplied by itself. A planet, therefore, twice our distance from the sun, will gravitate four times less than we do—the product of two multiplied by itself being four. Such is the great Law of Gravity, subject to the two conditions, that its force is directly as the mass of the bodies, and inversely as the square of the distance. It extends to the confines of the system, and acts as a mighty invisible chain to keep the primary bodies in brotherly relationship to each other, and in mutual subjection to the central luminary. And who can trace its operation without recognizing a Supreme Potentate, who appointed to the sun his place, launched the planets in the depths, obedient to a law which has preserved the family compact—originally established—unbroken through the long series of ages.

It must, however, be borne in mind that the attraction between bodies is mutual, proportioned to their masses and distances. While the sun attracts the planets toward himself, they also attract the sun, though their effect is comparatively small, owing to the vastness of the solar mass. The planets likewise act upon each other; and as their relative distances are perpetually varying, certain perturbations are caused in the system, which, though minute in each particular case, become considerable by accumulation, and yet are ultimately corrected and repaired by the same cause that produces them. Newton left to posterity the task of thoroughly investigating these inequalities, of showing them to be a result of the law of gravitation, and establishing the permanence of the system, notwithstanding the accumulating influence of its internal disturbances. He himself had no gleam of the latter truth, but seems to have entertained an opinion that the irregularities occasioned by the mutual action of the planets and comets would probably go on increasing till the system either wrought out its own destruction or received reparation from the direct intervention of its Creator. But Euler, Clairaut, D’Alembert, Lagrange, and Laplace, have demonstrated the problem that the perturbations of the planets are periodic in their nature, that accurate compensation for them is laid up in store, so that the system is not arranged upon a principle of self-destruction. The elements of disorder and decay are removed from it. The very conditions of its existence guarantee its stability till the will of the great Ruler shall be expressed to the contrary. When an end shall come to its present constitution, that will not be the effect of its own faulty architecture, but of the fiat of Omnipotence.

Room in which Newton was born.

The house of Newton at Woolsthorpe, now the homestead of a farmer, has been in the ownership of persons anxious to protect it, and preserve every relic of its former occupant. Stukeley thus described it in 1727: “’Tis built of stone, as is the way of the country hereabouts, and a reasonable good one. They led me upstairs, and showed me Sir Isaac’s study, where I suppose he studied when in the country in his younger days, or perhaps when he visited his mother from the university. I observed the shelves were of his own making, being pieces of deal boxes which probably he sent his books and clothes down in on those occasions.” Two sun-dials remain which he made when a boy; but the styles of both are wanting, and one has been recently taken from the wall to be presented to the Royal Society. The room in which he was born has the following inscription upon a tablet of white marble: “Sir Isaac Newton, son of John Newton, Lord of the Manor of Woolsthorpe, was born in this room on the 25th of December, 1642.” The apple-tree, the fall of one of the apples of which, according to tradition, drew his attention to the subject of gravity, was blown down by a gale some years ago, and a chair was constructed out of its timber. The Royal Society of London possesses his telescope; the Royal Society of Edinburgh the door of his book-case; and Trinity College, Cambridge, has a lock of his silver white hair.

While the foundations of physical astronomy were laid by Newton, his confidant and friend, the brilliant and active Halley, pursued a remarkably successful career in the practical departments of the science. Born in mercantile life, yet independent of it through the wealth amassed by his father, he early embarked his means and energies in the advancement of observation. Leaving Hevelius and Flamstead to keep guard over the northern hemisphere, he sailed to St. Helena to inspect the southern; and in honor of the reigning monarch who patronized the expedition, the oak which had screened him from his pursuers after the battle of Worcester, was raised to a place in the skies, forming the constellation Robur Carolinum. The object of the voyage was to determine the absolute and relative positions of the stars invisible to the European eye; but owing to the unpropitious climate of the island, only a catalogue of 360 was made after more than a year’s residence. Upon this voyage the oscillations of the pendulum were observed to decrease in number as the instrument approached the equator; a fact noticed a few years previous by Richer, and explained by Newton to result from the greater intensity of centrifugal force there, proportionably diminishing the force of gravity. The life of Halley was remarkable for locomotion, devoted to various scientific objects. He was twice at St. Helena, twice in the Adriatic, once in the West Indies, now with Newton in his study at Cambridge, anon with Hevelius in his observatory at Dantzic, and then with Cassini watching a comet at Paris. Upon the death of Flamstead, he succeeded to the office of astronomer royal, and though then in the sixty-fourth year of his age, he commenced the observation of the moon through a complete revolution of her nodes, involving a period of nineteen years, and lived to finish it, registering upward of two thousand observed lunar places. It was while journeying in France toward the close of 1680, that he observed the great comet of that year, on its return from proximity to the sun: and being aware of the conclusion of Newton, that such bodies describe very eccentric ellipses, his active mind began to study intently their phenomena, which resulted in a prophecy that has immortalized his name. After cataloguing and comparing a considerable number of comets, that of 1682 fortunately appeared. This he was led to regard as identical with those of 1456, 1531, and 1607, between which there is nearly the same interval. Hence he anticipated its return after the lapse of a similar period. “I dare venture,” said he, “to foretell that it will return again in 1758;” and, sanguine as to the result, he called upon posterity to notice that it was an Englishman who had hazarded the statement. This was a prediction announced in 1705, the accomplishment of which ranks with the greatest achievements of modern astronomy, and will perpetuate the fame of Halley to the remotest generations. He had been gathered to his grave in Lee church-yard seventeen years, when the celestial traveler re-appeared, at the time announced, to verify his words, illustrate his sagacity, and invest him with undying honor.

Halley’s Tomb.

Bradley, the English Hipparchus, the model of observers, as he is styled by Laplace, became the third astronomer royal upon the death of Halley. He had previously effected one of his two great discoveries, the aberration of the stars, an optical illusion, arising from the combined movement of the earth in space, and the progressive transmission of light; a discovery of the highest importance, requiring the greatest precision of observation to detect. Ever since the doctrine of the earth’s translation in space had been received, astronomers had been anxious to find some parallax of the fixed stars, as a sensible confirmation of the fact. Although the whole diameter of the earth’s orbit is relatively insignificant, it is yet absolutely vast. Hence it was deemed no unreasonable expectation that some small apparent change of place in the heavens would be discerned in the case of the fixed stars, when viewed from the two extremities of the earth’s annual orbit—separated from each other by the mighty chasm of a hundred and ninety millions of miles.

Aberration, or wandering, is the name given to this phenomenon. The term is not strictly accurate, as the apparent movements thus denominated are not irregular, but uniform. To discover the physical cause became an object of intense interest to Bradley, but it long baffled his researches and reasonings, and was at length developed by an accidental circumstance. He was accompanying a pleasure-party in a sail on the river Thames. The boat in which they were was provided with a mast which had a vane on the top of it; it blew a moderate wind, and the party sailed up and down the river for a considerable time. Bradley remarked, that every time the boat put about, the vane at the top of the mast shifted a little, as if there had been a slight change in the direction of the wind. He observed this three or four times without speaking; at last he mentioned it to the sailors, and expressed his surprise that the wind should shift so regularly every time they put about. The sailors told him that the wind had not shifted, but that the apparent change was owing to the change in the direction of the boat, and assured him that the same thing invariably happened in all cases. From that moment he conjectured that all the phenomena of aberration he had observed, arose from the progressive motion of light combined with the earth’s motion in its orbit. This sagacious conjecture satisfactorily explains the apparent movement of the stars. Suppose a body to pass from A to B in the same time that a ray of light passes from C to B. Owing to the two motions, the impression of the ray of light meeting the eye of a spectator at B will be exactly similar to what it would have been if the

eye had been at rest at B, and the molecule of light had come to it in the direction D, B. The star, therefore, whose real place is at C, will appear at D to the spectator at B. This effect is precisely analogous to what takes place when a person moves or travels rapidly through a shower of rain or snow in a perfectly calm state of the atmosphere. Without locomotion the rain-drops or snow-flakes will fall upon his hat, or upon the head of the carriage that conveys him, and not beat in his face, or against the front windows of the carriage. But if he is passing along swiftly, in any direction, east, west, north or south, the rain or snow will come in contact with his face, or enter the front windows of the carriage if they are open, as though the drops or flakes fell obliquely, and not from the zenith. Now as an object appears to us in the direction in which the rays of light strike the eye, it is easy to understand that a star in the zenith will appear at a little distance from it, to a spectator carried along with the earth in its orbit. This discovery established the fame of Bradley, who was exonerated from all future payments to the Royal Society on account of it; and it is of great importance, as the only sensible evidence we have of the earth’s annual motion. Soon after his appointment to the Greenwich observatory, he effected his second great discovery, that of the nutation of the earth’s axis, a slight oscillation of the pole of the equator about its mean place, describing an ellipse in the period of eighteen years. He determined likewise its cause, which theory had previously inferred to be the action of the moon upon the equatorial regions of the earth. Some idea of his industry may be formed from the fact, that in conjunction with his nephew, he made no less than eighteen thousand observations in a single year while astronomer royal; and the number from the year 1750 to 1762 amounted to upward of sixty thousand. The death of Bradley was interpreted as a Divine judgment by the populace. He had taken an active part with the Earl of Macclesfield and others, in urging on and assimilating the British calendar to that of other nations. This rendered it necessary to throw eleven days out of the current year in the month of September 1752—a measure which the ignorance of great numbers of the people led them to regard as an impious intermeddling with the Divine prerogative. Lord Macclesfield’s eldest son, at a contested election for Oxfordshire, was greeted with the cry from the mob, “Give us back the eleven days we have been robbed of!” and Bradley’s mortal sickness, some years later, was viewed as a punitive dispensation for having participated in the sacrilegious theft.

The latter half of the eighteenth century furnishes a large catalogue of distinguished names, men of high scientific ability, and, for the most part, of the finest mathematical minds, by whose labors practical astronomy made vast advances, and the physical theory of the universe, as previously developed, was amply illustrated and confirmed. During this era lunar tables were constructed of sufficient accuracy to be employed to solve the great problem of the longitude at sea. This was the work of Mayer, for which his widow received the sum of £3000 from government; and since that period, the publication of such tables, showing the places of the sun and moon, with the distance of the later from certain fixed stars, for every three hours, three years in advance, has been a national object, contributing to the safety of navigators upon the trackless deep. The same period is also celebrated for the determination of the figure and magnitude of the earth, and for the great improvements made in instruments of observation. If the century opened with lustre derived from the physical demonstrations of Newton, it closed magnificently with the telescopic discoveries of Herschel, the wonderful resident by the stately battlements of Windsor, by whose mechanical skill and matchless industry new regions were added to our solar system, and views unfolded of the infinity of the firmament, and the character of its architecture, which eye had not seen or the mind conceived.

A work specially devoted to the life and labors of Herschel is a desideratum. It is not to the credit of the country, that the men who have headed its physical force upon the field of battle have enjoyed a larger measure of public admiration and gratitude, and found a more speedy chronicle, than those who have enlarged the field of thought, ministered to the intellectual gratification, and elevated the mental character of the community. Bradley had lain in his grave 70 years, Newton 104, and Flamstead 116, before their memory received its meed of justice from the hands of Rigaud, Brewster, and Baily; a slackness to be attributed to the want of a due national estimate of the value of science, rather than to the reluctance of those who were competent to do ample honor to their merits. Herschel still remains without a record of this kind, though the materials for it are abundant, and his claims undoubted. Born at Hanover, the son of a musician in comparatively humble life, but early a resident in England, he appeared first as a professor and teacher of music, but rapidly rose by his own unaided efforts to eminence as an optician and astronomer. Anxious to inspect for himself the sublime revelations of the heavens, but destitute of means to purchase a telescope of sufficient power for his purpose, he resolved to employ some previous knowledge of optics and mechanics in the construction of an instrument. The earliest, a five-foot reflector, was completed in 1774: but altogether he accomplished the construction of upward of five hundred specula of various sizes, selecting the best of them for his telescopes. After having established his fame by the discovery of a new planet, and fixed his residence at Slough, under the munificent patronage of George the Third, he completed the giant instrument that attracted travelers from all parts to the spot, and rendered it one of the most remarkable sites of the civilized world. The tube was forty feet long, the speculum four feet in diameter, three inches and a half thick in every part, and weighing nearly two tons. Its space-penetrating power was estimated at 192, that is, it could search into the depths of the firmament 192 times farther than the naked eye. We can form no adequate conception of this extent, but only feebly approximate to it. Sirius, a star of the first magnitude, is separated by an immeasurable distance from us. But stars of a far inferior order of magnitude are visible to the naked eye. These we may conclude to be bodies far more remote, and reasonably suppose the star which presents the faintest pencil of light to the eye to be at least twice or thrice the distance of Sirius. Yet onward, 192 times farther, the space-penetrating power of the telescope at Slough swept the heavens. It was completed in the year 1789, but the frame of the instrument becoming decayed, through exposure to the weather, it was taken down by Sir John Herschel in 1823.

It will be convenient here to notice a reflecting telescope of far greater magnitude and power, recently constructed by the Earl of Rosse, and now in use at the seat of that nobleman, Birr Castle, in Ireland. The mechanical difficulties involved in this work, the patience, perseverance, and talent required to overcome them—and the great expenditure necessarily incurred—render the successful completion of this instrument one of the most extraordinary accomplishments of modern times; and entitle its owner and projector, from first to last, to the admiration of his countrymen. When the mechanical skill and profound mathematical knowledge essential to produce such a work are duly considered, together with the years devoted to previous experimenting, and an outlay of upward of twelve thousand pounds, this telescope must be regarded as one of the most remarkable and splendid offerings ever laid upon the altar of science. The speculum has a diameter of six feet, and therefore an area of reflecting surface nearly four times greater than that of the Herschelian, and its weight approaches to four tons. The casting—a work of no ordinary interest and difficulty—took place on the 13th of April, 1842, at nine in the evening; and as the crucibles poured forth their glowing contents—a burning mass of fluid matter, hissing, heaving and pitching—for the moment almost every one was anxious and fearful of accident or failure but Lord Rosse, who was observed directing his men as collectedly as on one of the ordinary occurrences of life. The speculum has been formed into a telescope of fifty feet local length, and is established between two walls of castellated architecture, against one of which the tube bears when in the meridian. It is no slight triumph of ingenuity, that this enormous instrument may be moved about and regulated by one man’s arm with perfect ease and certainty.

To return to Herschel. No addition had been made of any new body to the universe since Cassini discovered a fifth satellite in the train of Saturn. Nearly a century had elapsed without any further progress of that kind. The solar system, including the planets, satellites, and Halley’s comet, consisted of eighteen bodies when Herschel turned his attention to astronomy; but, before his career of observation terminated, he increased the number to twenty-seven, thus making the system half as large again as he found it, as to the number of its constituents—a brilliant recompense, but not an over-payment, considering the immense expenditure of time, and toil, and care. A primary planet with six moons, and two more satellites about Saturn, composed the reward. It was on the 13th of March, 1781, that, turning a telescope of high magnifying power—though not his gigantic instrument—to the constellation Gemini, he perceived a cluster of stars at the foot of Castor, and one in particular, which sensibly increased in diameter, while the rest of the stars remained unaltered. Two nights afterward, its place was changed, which originated the idea of its being a cometary body; an opinion embraced upon the continent when attention was called to it, but soon dispelled by clear evidence of its planetary nature. The new planet was named after the reigning monarch by the discoverer, but received his own name from astronomers, which was finally exchanged for the Uranus of heathen mythology, the oldest of the gods, the fabled father of Saturn and the grandsire of Jupiter—referring to the position of the planet beyond the orbits of the bodies named after the latter. By this discovery, the extent of the system was at once doubled; for the path of the stranger lies as far beyond what had been deemed its extreme confine, as that limit is removed from the sun. The first moment of his “attack” upon Saturn, upon completing the forty-feet reflector, he saw a sixth satellite, and a seventh moon later. But Herschel realized his most surprising results, and derives his greatest glory, from the observation of the sidereal heavens. The resolution of nebulæ and the Milky Way into an infinite number of stars—the discovery of new nebulæ of various forms, from the light luminous cloud to the nebulous star—of double and multiple stars—of the smaller revolving round the greater in the binary systems: these were some of his revelations to the world, as night after night, from dewy eve till break of dawn, he gauged the firmament. Caroline Herschel was the constant partner of her brother in his laborious undertakings—submitting to the fatigues of night attendance—braving with him the inclemency of the weather—noting down his observations as they issued from his lips—and taking, as the best of all authorities reports, the rough manuscript to the cottage at the dawn of day, and producing a fair copy of the night’s work on the ensuing morning. He died in 1822; but she has survived to see the heir of his name recognized by the world as the heir also of his talents and fame. It was one of the conceptions of this remarkable man—as bold an idea as ever entered the human mind—that the whole solar system has a motion in space, and is advancing toward a point in the heavens near the star λ Herculis. The idea remains to be verified; but it is not altogether unsupported by evidence, and quite consistent with the analogies of the universe.

The nineteenth century commenced with a fresh ingathering of members into the planetary family. It had been deemed a matter of surprise that the immense interval of about 350 millions of miles between Mars and Jupiter should be void, when only spaces varying from 25 to 50 millions divide Mars, the Earth, and the inferior planets. Keppler had therefore started the conjecture that a planet would be discovered in the vast region between the two former bodies; and thus bring it into something like proportion with the spaces between the latter. This idea was confirmed by a curious relation discovered by Professor Bode, of Berlin, that the intervals between the orbits of any two planets is about twice as great as the inferior interval, and only half the superior one. Thus, the distance between Venus and the Earth is double that between Mercury and Venus, and the half of that between the Earth and Mars. Uranus had not been discovered when Bode arrived at this remarkable analogy, but the distance of that planet being found to correspond with the law, furnished a striking confirmation of its truth. The respective distances of the planets may be expressed by the following series of numbers, whose law of progression is evident.

Mercury’s distance		=	4
Venus	4 + 3·0	=	7
Earth	4 + 3·2	=	10
Mars	4 + 3·2²	=	16

Jupiter	4 + 3·2⁴	=	52
Saturn	4 + 3·2⁵	=	100
Uranus	4 + 3·2⁶	=	196

The void in the series between Mars and Jupiter, so convinced the German astronomers of the existence of a planet to occupy it—which had hitherto escaped observation—that a systematic search for the concealed body was commenced. At Lilienthal, the residence of Schroeter, an association of twenty-four observers was formed in the year 1800, for the purpose of examining all the telescopic stars of the zodiac. The opening years of the century witnessed the anticipation substantially realized by the discovery of four planets—Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, revolving round the sun, at a mean distance of one hundred millions of miles from Mars, so small as only to be telescopic objects. This discovery we owe to Piazzi, Olbers, and Harding. Some singular features—without parallel in the planetary system—such as their close contiguity, the intersection of their orbits, with their diminutive size—Vesta not being much larger than the Spanish peninsula—led to the surmise that these bodies are fragments of a planet, which once revolved in their mean path with a magnitude proportionate to that of its neighbors. The possibility of such a disruption cannot be denied—the revolution of the fragments round the sun would follow in obedience to the mechanical laws by which the system is governed: but the point is obviously one of those questions which must remain entirely hypothetical. Next to this addition to the system, the most remarkable astronomical occurrences of the present age are the November meteors, the renewed return of Halley’s comet, and the determination of the annual parallax of the star 61 Cygni by Bessel. These will come under consideration in future pages, with the important contributions made to science by the great names of the day, Sir John Herschel, Sir James South, Struve, Airy, Arago, and others.

The progress of Astronomical discovery which has now been hastily traced, reminds us of the obligations we owe to those who have gone before us. While supplied with views respecting the constitution of the solar universe—the number, forms, magnitudes, distances, and movements of its members—upon the general accuracy of which the mind may repose with full satisfaction, the mode of its formation has been grappled with, and a theory presented, derived from the study of the sidereal heavens, which—though not demonstrable—is invested with a high degree of probability. The firmament exhibits dimly luminous appearances, like patches of white cloud, displaying various forms and peculiarities of structure, which are not resolvable into closely packed clusters of stars by any telescopic power, and whose phases are at variance with the idea that they are stellar groups, indistinct and blended from their remoteness. The nebulous substance, in one of its states, is evenly diffused, resembling a sheet of fog. Under another aspect, it is seen winding, and we detect a tendency toward structure, in the material congregating in different places, as if under the influence of a law of attraction. Definite structure appears in other cases, generally the spherical form, with great condensation at the centre, like regular stars in the midst of a thick haze. The question has hence naturally arisen, and it is one of profound interest—What do such appearances indicate? What do the differences in their character portend? Are they void and unmeaning substances in a universe of organization and order; or, are they advancing by a principle of progressive formation to share themselves in that order and organization? The idea has been started that, in these phenomena, we have an exhibition of the first state of the now organized bodies of our system, and of their progress to the ultimate conditions of their being, passing from one stage of construction to another, under control of the law of gravitation. This is substantially the nebular hypothesis of Laplace and Herschel: it supposes a diffused nebulosity, rotating with the solar nucleus, and extending beyond the bounds of the farthest planet, to have gradually condensed at the surface of the nucleus, accelerating thereby the solar rotation, and increasing the centrifugal force, by the action of which successive zones were detached, assuming spheroidal masses by the mutual attraction of their particles. This theory enlists a variety of evidence in its behalf. The fact of the projectile motions of all the planets and satellites taking place from west to east, in nearly the same plane—of their axical rotation likewise being all in the same direction, and corresponding with that of the solar body—is an instance of coincidence so extraordinary as strongly to support the theory of their common origin in obedience to a common law. It is no unimportant consideration that, in the physical and mental constitution of our own nature—with reference also to the inferior animals, both the feeble and the powerful, the tractable and the untamed—in relation too to the vegetable productions of the earth, whether flourishing in green savannas, or rooted in the clefts of the rock—we have a law of gradual formation now operating, which vindicates the idea from the charge of vain conceit, that an analogical law has operated with reference to the earth itself, and the various worlds that compose our system, supported—as the hypothesis is—by such significant evidences as the nebulous appearances in the heavens.

From the view which has now been taken, it is evidently no doubtful point to us—

“Whether the sun, predominant in heaven,

Rise on the earth, or earth rise on the sun;

He from the east his flaming rond begin,

Or she from the west her silent course advance,

With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps

On her soft axle.” . . . .

How incumbent the duty upon us, then, as we have largely benefited by our predecessors, that—as faithful stewards of their gifts—we should hand them down to posterity with an increase of value! How grand, and yet how simple, those views of the universe, upon the evidence of which we are now invited to gaze! The Sun, a central orb, attended by a stately cortège of planets, forming a system under the empire of law—a system not unique, but a general type of others as countless as the members of the stellar host, whose front ranks alone come within the range of telescopic vision: systems, probably, not physically insulated, but bound together by fine relationships, the nature of which—judging from the progress of the past, it is not arrogant to presume—will yet be revealed to the understanding of man. These are not ingenious theories—splendid conjectures; but established facts, and sober anticipations based upon them. To live and learn is the high vocation of humanity; one of the appointed ends which the great Artificer of existence contemplates in its continued series: the generations that are to come improving upon the acquirements of that which now is. Nor can we fix any limit to the growth of knowledge in relation to the physical universe, clear and insurmountable in the present state as are its bounds with respect to the spiritual world. Who can descry a resting point in the wilderness of space?—discern a barrier to the range of the creation? Vast as are the regions that have been entered, there are vaster amplitudes unapproached beyond them, toward which the mind may advance in endless progression; often indeed faltering in the pilgrimage beneath the burden of those conceptions of space and magnitude which immensity suggests, but still going onward.