Where ends this mighty building? where begin.
The suburbs of Creation? where the will
Whose battlements look ver into the vale.
Of non-existence? Nothing's strange abode !
Say at what point of Space Schovah droppid
His stackened line, and laid his balance by:
Weighed worlds, and measured infinite.

no more.

LIBRARY

ACTOR, LENOX

TILDEN FOUNDATIONE

INTRODUCTION.

Thou who didst put to flight
Primeval silence, when the morning stars
Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball;

O Thou! whose word from solid darkness struck
That spark the sun, strike wisdom from my soul;
My soul which flies to Thee, her trust, her treasure.

WHATEVER is vast in magnitude, extensive in duration, distant in situation, rapid in motion, and regular in succession, belongs to the sublime science of astronomy. The sun,-how stupendous its bulk, how glorious its appearance, and how splendid its retinue! to this magnificent body, not only our earth turns, but numerous other revolving globes, to receive motion, light, heat, fertility, and other unceasing energies; without which, perpetual sterility, ceaseless desolation, and eternal night, would reign over every planet, that now circulates around the sun as its golden centre; the streams which issue from its orb, revive every living thing, give colour to the rose, and beauty to the landscape. After riding in brightness through the vault of heaven, this glorious luminary disappears, and dispenses to other regions its benignant influences; the moon, then, rising in cloudless majesty, unveils her silvery splendour, and as her soft

a

beams are reflected from tower, rock, and rolling ocean, gently tinging the forest foliage, and the fertile valley, the mind is filled with indescribable emotions at the silent solemnity of the scene, so that if only these two luminaries had been revealed to the eye of man, and all the vast orbs of immensity hidden from his knowledge and view, there would be sufficient proof of the power, the goodness, and the majesty, of that Being, who gave "the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night."

In whatever direction the eye is turned, there are objects in the heavens to satisfy the curiosity of the lover of variety, and excite the admiration and wonder of the devout student of the sublime science of astronomy; the rapidly changing spots on the solar disc; the bold mountain scenery of the moon; the hasty visits of Mercury to our morning and evening twilight, shining like a living jewel on the verge of the rosy dawn, or the dewy eve; the ever varying phases of Venus; the gibbous form of Mars; the miniature system of Jupiter, exemplifying on a small scale, and in brief portions of time, those phenomena, which require ages for developement in the larger bodies of the system; the magnificent rings and retinue of Saturn, and the anomalous system of Uranus; comets from the regions of space traverse the planetary orbits, wheel round the sun, and disappear : some throwing their brilliant trains across the heavens, and others stealing with feeble beams through the starry sky, on their mysterious destination. Beyond those regions, visited by the most excursive of these erratic bodies, the fixed stars invite the attention, and bewilder the eye, with the infinite variety of their combinations,

colours, brightness, and the immensity of their numbers. Still more remote, dimly shine forth those mysterious mist-like forms, (nebulæ,) the subjects of a higher astronomy, beyond which science fails to penetrate, and abandons the most vigorous mind to the illimitable exercise of imagination.

A slight reference has been made to magnitude, which is, however, but a relative term; the pearl that adorns the diadem, is large when compared with the sparkling dew-drop; a miniature representation of the terrestrial sphere, is small when compared with the sailing globe, which conveys the bold aëronaut on his adventurous voyage. To acquire a correct idea of magnitude, we must ascend some elevation, from whence a prospect might be obtained of an uninterrupted horizon; here would be displayed an extent of view, stretching forty miles in every direction, forming a circle, eighty miles in diameter, consequently, one hundred and fifty in circumference, and an area of five thousand square miles ; this, then, would be one of the largest objects that the eye could grasp at one time; but large as it is, it would require forty thousand such prospects to constitute the whole surface of the earth; but this is comparatively nothing, for one of those glittering points which ornament the celestial canopy, (Jupiter,) is fourteen thousand times larger than the earth, and the sun 1,384,480 times larger than our terrestrial globe! Here, then, the imagination begins to be overpowered at any early step of the comparison, for there are, it is probable, an hundred million of such bodies as the sun within the scope of modern instruments, each individual of which may be as vast as our solar orb; and if all of these were congre