errand and its complexion; but, having kissed Mrs. Mowbray and the children with rapture, her spirits then failed her, and she sank into a chair, sobbing aloud while her father explained the particulars of all that to her was matter of delirium; and, while her mother, now congratulated her neighbours, and now called upon her daughter to dry her cheeks, and to still her heaving bosom, I had entered the kitchendoor; and, amid the occupation of all present with the subject of their pleasure, had found confidence enough to pass from picking a few crumbs upon the floor, to settle upon the top of a tall and old carved press, whence I beheld and listened to the whole affecting scene!

The kitchen at the farm-house became, from this day forward, so cheerful a place of resort; the door was so commonly open, and the fire so commonly blazing; and the events that had occurred in it, and the familiar figures of its occupants and guests, had grown into so many sources of strong attraction to me, that I frequented it more than ever. I was at Burford Cottage every morning, and I slept and sung my evening song every night in its garden; but at mid-day, and till nearly sun-set, I was usually at Farmer Mowbray's; where, as I observed, Mr. Gubbins and his wife and daughter were now more customary guests, than even before the happy changes in the farmer's plans.

It followed, too, that because the minds of all the company were now so much at ease, and because a comfortable chair was so constantly at the service of Mr. Gubbins, that his accounts of the starry heavens, first solicited and listened to from that vague idea of their relation to the afflictions of the earth, so com

mon with such as are at once unhappy and untaught; it followed that their conclusion was now asked for, and most willingly accorded, amid calmer feelings and serener countenances; and where the lights and movements of the skies could now be contemplated with a delight, mingled indeed with wonder and with awe, but without terror. The children returned to their natural and commendable inquisitiveness concerning that mysterious round of ever-moving glories, which, high above our heads, and detached from all the world that we inhabit, has commanded in so irresistible a manner the attention of all countries and ages; and which, the more it is considered, so much the more attractive, and the more mysterious, it hourly becomes! Mr. Gubbins encouraged even their wildest and most fantastical inquiries; and incessantly allowed them to interrupt his more methodical course of instruction, to satisfy even their smallest doubts, or indulge, and then dissolve, their idlest speculations!

"Reverting for a moment," said he (while he hoped thereby to remove even the latest lingering alarm from the minds of his hearers), " to what we have said of the Earth's being injured through the attraction of the mass of the body of a Comet, I shall give you two instances, in which (thanks to the prodigious facilities afforded by human art, and the patient attention of astronomical observers *) the courses of two Comets have already been watched as they passed very near to other planets than our own; and where, through

* The patience required of practical astronomers, especially under so cloudy a sky as that of England, may be partly understood from an observation of Herschel, that a year which afforded ninety, or, at most, a hundred nights adapted to observation, was to be thought a year highly favourable to the astronomer!

all the passage, no disaster has ever happened. Only a year or two ago, this Comet of Biela passed by the orbit of the Earth, and, crossing the orbits of Venus and Mercury, then peacefully buried its almost indistinguishable form within the circle of the solar rays. More remarkable and conclusive phenomena, however, were witnessed in the year 1770, when a Comet passed through the system of Jupiter;-that is, crossed the several orbits of that planet and of its four moons,—that is, held its impetuous and undeviating course between all those bodies, and across their paths—without disturbing, even by its attractive force, the motion or condition of any one among them; and when also the same Comet passed close enough to the Earth to have shortened the length of its year, had the mass of the Comet been sufficiently great, or the velocity of its motion sufficiently small, to admit of the production of such an effect."

66

But now, Master Gubbins," said Farmer Mowbray, "that you have given us reasons for letting go so many old opinions concerning the operation of these Comets, can you tell us any thing about what you think they were really made for? You know, that when we have begun to think about any thing, we are apt to be restless till we have fixed upon some opinion or other concerning it; and you know, too, that nothing is made in vain; so that Comets must have some office to perform in the skies, whether good or bad, or great or small!" "We will not say returned Mr. Gubbins, nor even great or small ;' because we will not permit ourselves to imagine the possibility that their office is either evil or unimportant; but, as to my own thoughts of the uses of Comets, I

good or bad,' if thee pleasest,"

66

will give thee the best answer that I am able, only wishing thee to understand, as we go, that, for two reasons, I speak diffidently upon the subject; the first, that I am not sure of having any thing altogether new to say; and the second, that if what I shall say is really new, I advance it with proportionable caution. Comets, instead of travelling, like the planets, in circles, or in orbits that are nearly circles, travel in long ellipses, or long ovals, of which no more than one of the extremities pass partly round the sun, while the other stretches into the opposite regions of space, to different distances in the different Comets, and in some of them beyond the orbits of the most distant of the planets of our system. Now, philosophers have said something about the probability, that Comets, at their perihelion, or time of passing partly round the sun, acquire, from that luminary, stores of the matter of heat, which, through all the remainder of their course, they are destined to spread abroad again, for the advantage of the planets; and if, by this language, it is meant, that Comets, and their motions, are resources of nature for diffusing a certain degree of warmth throughout, and even beyond, that portion of space which is occupied by the sun and its planets; then, I do not know that I have any thing left to do, but to concur in their opinions. It may very well be, that if the space occupied by a solar system, and even the space by which that space is surrounded, were without the warming aid of Comets, the watery atmospheres of those planets which enjoy it would be condensed; the surfaces of all of them be frozen; and vegetation and animal life entirely extinguished. There are other parts of the natural economy, in which, as I think,

corresponding arrangements, for corresponding purposes, are plainly to be observed; but perhaps, I have now said enough upon this particular instance, if it be such, as constituting the real office of Comets. The velocity of their movements in their orbits (so far surpassing, as it does, the velocities of the movements of the planets), will be seen to answer, under my hypothesis, very important ends. The rapid motion. will greatly contribute to the comparative warmth of the etherial space; and will, at the same time, transport, with a requisite saving of time, the heated body from one to the other of its most distant points of traverse; thus parting with the smallest expedient portion of the heat which it acquires from the sun, during its passage to and from the opposite ends of its course*. Or, a Comet may derive no heat from the sun, but rather communicate that temperament to the space about the sun, its heat and light being the consequences only of its own velocity; for I have never heard that a Comet has appeared more fiery at its departure from the sun, than at its approach to it.”

But," said Farmer Mowbray," there must surely have been some reason why our forefathers were so fearful of the appearance of a Comet; always expecting from it, not good, but evil?”

66

'I attribute the fearfulness," answered Mr. Gubbins, first to the general, and not quite unreasonable dis

* The author of these pages has long since announced his intention to print a tract, entitled, "The Circulation of the Sea, upon the Line of the Meridian," in which he proposes to argue the probability of an effect produced by the sea upon the surface of the earth, corresponding with this suggested as produced in space by the action of Comets; a third instance of similar design and agency appearing to him to discover itself, at the same time, in the phenomenon of the Polar Lights.