in astronomical watch-towers; eyes that keep watch and ward over spaces that make us dizzy to remember, eyes that register the promises of comets, and disentangle the labyrinths of worlds. general uproar of torrents, but which can be detected and kept apart by the obstinate prophetic ear, which spells into words and ominous sentences the distracted syllables of aerial voices. Dr. Nichol is one of those Another feature of interest, connected who pass to and fro between these classes; with the Glasgow Observatory, is personal, and has the rare function of keeping open and founded on the intellectual character-their vital communications. As a popularistics of the present professor, Dr. Nichol; izing astronomer, he has done more for the in the deep meditative style of his mind benefit of his great science than all the rest seeking for rest, yet placed in conflict for of Europe combined: and now, when he ever with the tumultuous necessity in him notices, without murmur, the fact that his for travelling along the line of revolution-office of popular teacher is almost taken ary thought, and following it loyally, wea-out of his hands, (so many are they who ried or not, to its natural home. have trained of late for the duty,) that In a sonnet of Milton, one of three con- change has, in fact, been accomplished nected with his own blindness, he distin-through knowledge, through explanations, guishes between two classes of servants through suggestions, dispersed and promptthat minister to the purposes of God. "His ed by himself. state," says he, meaning God's state, the ar- For my own part, as one belonging to rangement of his regular service, "is king-the laity, and not to the clerus, in the scily;" that is to say, it resembles the mode ence of astronomy, I could scarcely have of service established in the courts of kings; presumed to report minutely, or to sit in and, in this, it resembles that service, that the character of dissector upon the separate there are two classes of ministers attending details of Dr. Nichol's works, either this, on his pleasure. For, as in the trains of or those which have preceded it, had there kings are some that run without resting even been room left disposable for such a night or day, to carry the royal messages, task. But in this view it is sufficient to and also others great lords in waiting-have made the general acknowledgment that move not from the royal gates; so of which already has been made, that Dr. the divine retinues, some are for action only, some for contemplation. "Thousands" there are that -" at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest." Nichol's works, and his oral lectures upon astronomy, are to be considered as the fundus of the knowledge on that science now working in this generation. More important it is, and more in reconciliation with the tenor of my own ordinary studies, to Others, on the contrary, motionless as sta-notice the philosophic spirit in which Dr. tues, that share not in the agitations of their Nichol's works are framed; the breadth of times, that tremble not in sympathy with his views, the eternal tendency of his steps the storms around them, but that listen in advance, or (if advance on that quarter, that watch-that wait for secret indica-or at that point, happens to be absolutely tions to be fulfilled, or secret signs to be deciphered. And, of this latter class, he adds-that they, not less than the others, are accepted by God; or, as it is so exquisitely expressed in the closing line, "They also serve that only stand and wait." Something analogous to this, one may see in the distributions of literature and science. Many popularize and diffuse: some reap and gather on their own account. Many translate, into languages fit for the multitude, messages which they receive from human voices: some listen, like Kubla Khan, far down in caverns, or hanging over subterranean rivers, for secret whispers that mingle and confuse themselves with the walled out for the present) the vigor of the hostile intrenchments. Another feature To all of them so infernally punctual, they kept time with such horrible precision, that they forced him, whether he would or no, to think of nothing but post-office clocks, mail-coaches, and book-keepers. Regularity may be beautiful, but it excludes the sublime. What he wished for was something like Lloyd's list. Comets--due 3; arrived 1. Mercury, when last seen, appeared to be dis- Pallas and Vesta, not heard of for some time; has no space in the theatre of his own brain. I know writers who report the marvels of velocity, &c. in such a way that they become insults to yourself. It is obvious that in their way of insisting on our Earth's speed in her annual orbit, they do not seek to exalt her, but to mortify you. And, besides, these fellows are answerable for provoking people into fibs-for I remember one day, that reading a statement of this nature, about how many things the Earth had done that we could never hope to do, and about the number of cannon balls, harnessed as a tandem, which the Earth would fly past, without leaving time to say, How are you off for soap? in vexation of heart I could not help exclaiming- Now this poor man's misfortune was, to "That's nothing: I've done a great deal have lived in the days of mere planetary more myself;" though, when one turns it astronomy. At present, when our own in one's mind, you know there must be little system, with all its grandeurs, has some inaccuracy there. How different is dwindled by comparison to a subordinate Dr. Nichol's enthusiasm from this hypocri- province, if any man is bold enough to say tical and vulgar wonderment! It shows it- so, a poor shivering unit amongst myriads self not merely in reflecting the grandeurs that are brighter, we ought no longer to of his theme, and by the sure test of de-talk of astronomy, but of the astronomies. tecting and allying itself with all the indi- There is the planetary, the cometary, the rect grandeurs that arrange themselves from any distance, upon or about that centre, but by the manifest promptness with which Dr. Nichol's enthusiasm awakens itself upon every road that leads to things elevating for man; or to things promising for knowledge; or to things which, like dubious theories or imperfect attempts at systematizing, though neutral as regards knowledge, minister to what is greater than knowledge, viz. to intellectual power, to the augmented power of handling your materials, though with no more materials than before. In his geological and cosmological inquiries, in his casual speculations, the same quality of intellect betrays itself; the intellect that labors in sympathy with the laboring nisus of these gladiatorial times; that works (and sees the necessity of work-cant areas, upon which the astronomer may ing) the apparatus of many sciences towards a composite result; the intellect that retires in one direction only to make head in another; and that already is prefiguring the route beyond the barriers, whilst yet the gates are locked. sidereal, perhaps also others; as, for instance, even yet the nebular; because, though Lord Rosse has smitten it with the son of Amram's rod, has made it open, and cloven a path through it, yet other and more fearful nebula may loom in sight (if further improvements should be effected in the telescope) that may puzzle even Lord Rosse. And when he tells his famulus-"Fire a shot at that strange fellow, and make him show his colors," possibly the mighty stranger may disdain the summons. That would be vexatious: we should all be incensed at that. But no matter. What's a nebula, what's a world, more or less? In the spiritual heavens are many mansions: in the starry heavens, that are now unfolding and preparing to unfold before us, are many va pitch his secret pavilion. He may dedicate himself to the service of the Double Suns; he has my license to devote his whole time to the quadruple system of suns in Lyra. Swammerdam spent his life in a ditch watching frogs and tadpoles; why may not There was a man in the last century, and an astronomer give nine lives, if he had an eminent man too, who used to say, that them, to the watching of that awful appearwhereas people in general pretended to ad- ance in Hercules, which pretends to some mire astronomy as being essentially sub-rights over our own unoffending system? lime, he for his part looked upon all that sort of thing as a swindle; and, on the contrary, he regarded the solar system as decidedly vulgar; because the planets were Why may he not mount guard with public approbation, for the next fifty years, upon the zodiacal light, the interplanetary ether, and other rarities, which the professional 1 body of astronomers would naturally keep tary orbit, matters are mending: for the (if they could) for their own private enjoy-last six or seven years I have heard of these ment. There is no want of variety now, fiery showers, but indeed I cannot say how nor in fact of irregularity: for the most ex- much earlier they were first noticed,* as quisite clock-work, which from enormous celebrating two annual festivals-on -one in distance seems to go wrong, virtually for us August, one in November. You are a little does go wrong; so that our friend of the too late, reader, for seeing this year's sumlast century, who complained of the solar mer's festival; but that's no reason why system, would not need to do so any longer. you should not engage a good seat for the There are anomalies enough to keep him November meeting; which, if I recollect, cheerful. There are now even things to is about the 9th, or the Lord Mayor's day, alarm us; for any thing in the starry worlds and on the whole better worth seeing. For that looks suspicious, any thing that ought any thing we know, this may be a great day not to be there, is, for all purposes of fright- in the earth's earlier history; she may have ening us, as good as a ghost. put forth her original rose on this day, or But of all the novelties that excite my tried her hand at a primitive specimen of own interest in the expanding astronomy of wheat; or she may, in fact, have survived recent times, the most delightful and pro- some gunpowder plot about this time; so mising are those charming little pyrotechnic that the meteoric appearance may be a kind planetoids, that variegate our annual congratulating feu-de-joye on the annivercourse. It always struck me as most dis-sary of the happy event. What it is that gusting, that, in going round the sun, we the cosmogony man' in the "Vicar of must be passing continually over old roads, Wakefield" would have thought of such and yet we had no means of establishing an novelties, whether he would have favored acquaintance with them; they might as well us with his usual opinion upon such topics, be new for every trip. Those chambers of viz. that anarchon ara kai ateleutaion to ether, through which we are tearing along pan, or have sported a new one exclusively night and day, (for our train stops at no stations,) doubtless, if we could put some mark upon them, must be old fellows perfectly liable to recognition. I suppose they never have notice to quit. And yet, for want of such a mark, through all our lives flying past them and through them, we can never challenge them as known. The same thing happens in the desert: one monotonous iteration of sand, sand, sand, unless where some miserable fountain stagnates, * Somewhere I have seen it remarked, that if, forbids all approach to familiarity: nothing on a public road, you meet a party of four women, is circumstantiated or differenced: travel it is at least fifty to one that they are all laughing; whereas, if you meet an equal party of my own it for three generations, and you are no unhappy sex, you may wager safely that they are nearer to identification of its parts: so that talking gravely, and that one of them is uttering it amounts to travelling through an abstract the word money. Hence it must be, viz. beidea. For the desert, really I suspect the cause our sisters are too much occupied with the playful things of this earth, and our brothers with thing is hopeless: but, as regards our plane-its gravities, that neither party sufficiently watch for this occasion, may be doubtful. What it is that astronomers think, who are a kind of 'cosmogony men,' the reader may learn from Dr. Nichol, Note B (p. 139-140). In taking leave of a book and a subject so well fitted to draw out the highest mode of that grandeur, which can connect itself with the external, (a grandeur capable of drawing down a spiritual being to earth, es the skies. And that accounts for a fact which "Pyrotechnic planetoids :"-The reader will often has struck myself, viz. that in cities, on understand me as alluding to the periodic shoot- bright moonless nights, when some brilliant skiring stars. It is now well known, that as, upon mishings of the Aurora are exhibiting, or even a our own poor little earthly ocean, we fall in with luminous arch, which is a broad ribbon of snowy certain phenomena as we approach certain lati-light that spans the skies, positively, unless I mytudes; so also upon the great ocean navigated by our Earth, we fall in with prodigious showers of these meteors at periods no longer uncertain but fixed as jail-deliveries. "These remarkable s owers of meteors," says Dr. Nichol, "observ d at different periods in August and November, seem to demonstrate the fact, that, at these periods, we have come in contact with two streams of such planetoids then intersecting the earth's orbit." If they intermit, it is only because they are shifting their nodes, or points of intersection. VOL. IX. No. II. 16 self say to people-" Eyes upwards!" not one in a hundred, male or female, but fails to see the show, though it may be seen gratis, simply because their eyes are too uniformly reading the earth. This downward direction of the eyes, however, must have been worse in former ages: because else it never could have happened that, until Queen Anne's days, nobody ever hinted in a book that there was such a thing, or could be such a thing as the Aurora Borealis; and in fact Halley had the credit of discovering it. 246 but not of raising an earthly being to hea- | ways-horizontal, upright-rested, roseven,) I would wish to contribute my own at altitudes, by spans that seemed ghostly brief word of homage to this grandeur by from infinitude. Without measure were recalling from a fading remembrance of the architraves, past number were the archtwenty-five years back, a short bravura of ways, beyond memory the gates. Within John Paul Richter. I call it a bravura, as were stairs that scaled the eternities above, being intentionally a passage of display and that descended to the eternities below: elaborate execution; and in this sense I above was below, below was above, to the may call it partly' my own,' that at twenty-man stripped of gravitating body: depth five years' distance (after one single reading) it would not have been possible for any man to report a passage of this length without greatly disturbing the texture of the composition: by altering, one makes it partly one's own; but it is right to mention, that the sublime turn at the end belongs entirely to John Paul. was swallowed up in height insurmountable, height was swallowed up in depth unfathomable. Suddenly, as thus they rode from infinite to infinite, suddenly, as thus they tilted over abysmal worlds, a mighty cry arose that systems more mysterious, that worlds more billowy,-other heights, and other depths,-were coming, were nearing, were at hand. Then the man sighed, and stopped, shuddered, and wept. His overladen heart uttered itself in tears; and he said—' Angel, I will go no farther. For the spirit of man aches with this infinity. Insufferable is the glory of God. Let me lie down in the grave from the persecutions of the infinite; for end, I see, there is none.' And from all the listening stars that shone around issued a choral voice, 'The man speaks truly end there is none, that ever yet we heard of.' is there none?' the angel solemnly demanded: Is there indeed no end? And is this the sorrow that kills you?' But no voice answered, that he night answer himself. Then the angel threw up his glorious hands to the heaven of heavens, saying, End is there none to the universe of God? Lo! also there is no Beginning.' End "God called up from dreams a man into the vestibule of heaven, saying-Come thou hither, and see the glory of my house.' And to the servants that stood around his throne he said,-'Take him, and undress him from his robes of flesh: cleanse his vision, and put a new breath into his nostrils: only touch not with any change his human heart-the heart that weeps and trembles.' It was done; and, with a mighty angel for his guide, the man stood ready for his infinite voyage; and from the terraces of heaven, without sound or farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space. Sometimes with the solemn flight of angel wing they fled through Zaarrahs of darkness, through wildernesses of death, that divided the worlds of life: sometimes they swept over frontiers, that were quickening under prophetic motions from God. Then, from a distance that is counted only in heaven, light dawned for a time through a sleepy film by unutterable pace the light swept to them, they by unutterable pace to the light in a moment the rushing of planets was upon them in a moment the blazing of suns was around them. Then came eternities of twilight, that revealed, but were not revealed. To the right hand and to the left towered mighty constellations, that by self-repetitions and answers from afar, that by counter-positions, built up tri-religion, does not come amongst men for the sake It is sometimes said, that the revealer of a true umphal gates, whose architraves, whose arch- of teaching truths in science, or correcting errors in science. Most justly is this said: but often in terms far too feeble. For generally these terms are such as to imply, that, although no function of his mission, i was yet open to him-although not pressing with the force of an obligation upon the revealer, it was yet at his discretion-if not to correct other men's errors, yet at least in his own person to speak with scientific precision. I contend that it was not. I contend, that to have uttered the truths of astronomy, of geology, &c., at the era of new-born Christianity, was not only : *" Disturbing :" neither perhaps should I much have sought to avoid alterations if the original had been lying before me; for it tak s the shape of a dream; and this mos brilliant of all German writers wanted in that field the severe simplicity, that horror of the too much, belonging to Grecian architecture, which is essential to the perfection of a dream considered as a work of art. He was too elaborate, to realize the grandeur of the shadowy. preceding paper, the writer becomes afraid that NOTE. On throwing his eyes hastily over the some readers may give such an interpretation to a few playful expressions upon the age of our earth, &c., as to class him with those who use geology, cosmology, &c., for purposes of attack, or insinuation against the Scriptures. Upon this point, therefore, be wishes to make a firm expla nation of his own opinions, which, (whether right or wrong,) will liberate him, once for all, from any such jealousy. mination of an inspired teacher, is to assault capitally the scheme of God's discipline and training for man. To improve by heavenly means, if below the purposes of a religion, but would have been against them. Even upon errors of a far more important class than any errors in science can ever be,-superstitions, for instance, that debut in one solitary science-to lighten, if but in graded the very idea of God; prejudices and false one solitary section, the condition of difficulty usages, that laid waste human happiness, (such which had been designed for the strengthening as slavery and many hundreds of other abuses and training of human faculties, is pro tanto to that might be mentioned,) the rule evidently disturb-to cancel-to contradict a previous puracted upon by the Founder of Christianity was pose of God, made known by silent indications this-Given the purification of the fountain, once from the beginning of the world. Wherefore did assumed that the fountains of truth are cleansed, God give to man the powers for contending with all these derivative currents of evil will cleanse scientific difficulties? Wherefore did he lay a themselves. And the only exceptions, which 1 secret train of continual occasions, that should remember, to this rule, are two cases in which, rise, by intervals, through thousands of generafrom the personal appeal made to his decision, tions, for provoking and developing those activiChrist would have made himself a party to ties in man's intellect, if, after all, he is to send wretched delusions, if he had not condescended a messenger of his own, more than human, to to expose their folly. But, as a general rule, the intercept and strangle all these great purposes? branches of error were disregarded, and the roots When, therefore, the persecutors of Galileo alonly attacked. If, then, so lofty a station was leged that Jupiter, for instance, could not move taken with regard even to such errors as had in the way alleged, because then the Bible would moral and spiritual relations, how much more have proclaimed it, as they thus threw back with regard to the comparative trifles, (as in the upon God the burthen of discovery, which he ultimate relations of human nature they are,) of had thrown upon Galileo, why did they not, by merely human science! But, for my part, I go following out their own logic, throw upon the further, and assert, that upon three reasons it was Bible the duty of discovering the telescope, or impossible for any messenger from God, (or offer- discovering the satellites of Jupiter? And, as ing himself in that character,) for a moment to no such discoveries were there, why did they have descended into the communication of truth not, by parity of logic, and for mere consistency, merely scientific, or economic, or worldly. And deny the telescope as a fact, deny the Jovian the reasons are these: First, Because it would planets as facts? But this it is to mistake the have degraded his mission, by lowering it to the very meaning and purpose of a revelation. A base level of a collusion with human curiosity, or revelation is not made for the purpose of showwith petty and transitory interests. Secondly, ing to idle men that which they may show to Because it would have ruined his mission; would themselves, by faculties already given to them, utterly have prostrated the free agency and the if only they will exert those faculties, but for the proper agency of that mission. He that, in those purpose of showing that which the moral darkdays, should have proclaimed the true theory of ness of man will not, without supernatural light, the Solar System and the heavenly forces, would allow him to perceive. With disdain, therefore, have been shut up at once-as a lunatic likely to must every considerate person regard the notion, become dangerous. But suppose him to have that God could wilfully interfere with his own escaped that; still, as a divine teacher, he has plans, by accrediting ambassadors to reveal astrono liberty of caprice. He must stand to the pro-nomy, or any other science, which he has commises of his own acts. Uttering the first truth manded men to cultivate without revelation, by of a science, he is pledged to the second: taking endowing them with all the natural powers for the main step, he is committed to all which fol-doing so. low. He is thrown at once upon the endless Even as regards astronomy, a science so nearly controversies which science in every stage pro- allying itself to religion by the loftiness and by vokes, and in none more than in the earliest. Or, the purity of its contemplations, Scripture is noif he retires as from a scene of contest that he where the parent of any doctrine, nor so much as had not anticipated, he retires as one confessing the silent sanctioner of any doctrine Scripture a human precipitance and a human oversight, cannot become the author of falsehood,-though weaknesses, venial in others, but fatal to the pre- it were as to a trifle, cannot become a party to tensions of a divine teacher. Starting besides falsehood. And it is made impossible for Scripfrom such pretensions, he could not (as others ture to teach falsely, by the simple fact that Scripmight) have the privilege of selecting arbitrarily ture, on such subjects, will not condescend to or partially. If upon one science, then upon all, teach at all. The Bible adopts the erroneous -if upon science, then upon art,-if upon art and language of men, (which at any rate it must do, science, then upon every branch of social econo-in order to make itself understood,) not by way my, upon every organ of civilization, his reforma- of sanctioning a theory, but by way of using a tions and advances are equally due; due to us fact. The Bible uses (postulates) the phenomena all, if due as to any. To move in one direction, f day and night, of summer and winter, and exis constructively to undertake for all. Without presses them, in relation to their causes, as men power to retreat, he has thus thrown the intel-express them, men, even, that are scientific astrolectual interests of his followers into a channel nomers But the results, which are all that conutterly alien to the purposes of a spiritual mis-cern Scripture, are equally true, whether accountsion. ed for by one hypothesis which is philosophically Thus far he has simply failed: but next comes just, or by another which is popular and erring. a worse result; an evil, not negative but positive Now, on the other hand, in geology and cosHere there Because, thirdly, to apply the light of a revela-mology, the case is still stronger. tion for the benefit of a merely human science, is no pening for a compliance even with popuwhich is virtually done by so applying the illu- lar language. Here, where there is no such |