The seat of man.”
but when eastward of the sun, she is an evening star, shining after he is set, and then the poets give her the name Hesperus or Vesper.
“——Her lovely beams adorn
As well the dewy eve, as opening morn.”
She is in each situation, alternately, between nine and ten months, or about 290 days. Pythagoras is said to have first discovered that Hesperus and Phosphorus were one and the same star. “From the name Phosphorus,” says Costard, “it seems as if this is the same star that in Isaiah is called הילל בן שהר Helal-ben-shahar, or Helal, son of the morning; a name given it on account of its remarkable brightness. If so, that is the oldest record of a planet that occurs in any author whatever now extant: this was about the year before Christ 710.”
Venus is frequently seen in the day-time, when in the inferior part of her orbit, at about forty degrees distant from the sun.
“No stars besides their radiance can display
In Phœbus’ presence the dread Lord of day;
Ev’n Cynthia’s self, though regent of the night,
Is quite obscur’d by his emergent light;