Or, thus more feriously, Homer

As the red Comet from Saturnius fent
To fright the Nations with a dire Portent,
(A fatal Sign to Armies on the Plain,
Or trembling Sailors on the wat ry Main)
With fweeping Glories glides along in Air,
And fhakes the Sparkles from his blazing Hair.

Euphrof. I do not much regard the Opinion of the Ancients: Pray, what do the Moderns, and the most judicious among them, take the Comets to be?

Cleon. Some (and not a few) think they are appointed as the Places of Torment for the damned; that is, that each Comet is, properly and literally fpeaking, a Hell; from the intolerable and inconceivable Heat and Cold which is found alternately in thofe Bodies. To this agrees the Poet..

Who can the Comet's wondrous Journey tell?
Seats not unaptly deem'd the Place of Hell.
Now burning in the Sun's immediate Beams;
More frigid now than Greenland's frozen Streams.
Of all God's Works, our Reafon Nothing fhews,
So fitly form'd for Torments and for Woes.

Euphrof. O dreadful, Cleonicus! What, every Comet a Hell! Surely the Philofophers begin to preach very terrible Doctrine indeed; how will fuch receive a Plurality of Hells, who can scarce think it confiftent with the Goodnefs and Mercy of God to appoint any Hell at all!

Cleon. You must confider, Sifter, that what is faid on this Head, is Nothing but Conjecture; there are fome other Ufes affigned to Comets, which to fome Philofophers appear very probable.

Euphref. What are they?

Cleon. Some fuppofe, that they are the Means appointed by the Almighty for putting a Period to the Planetary World; either by involving the Globe of the Planets in their Atmosphere of Water, in their Return from the cold Regions, and fo drown them by a general Deluge or Flood, as was the Cafe, according to foez of our Earth in the Time of Noah.

Euphrof. Hold: Pray answer me a Question, which I can scarce afk without trembling; Do the Comets indeed påfs and repass in their Orbits fo near the Orbit of the Earth, as to endanger it in the Manner you reprefent by their near Approach? If fo, then we are not only liable to be drowned on one Hand, but burnt to Death on the other; if the Comet should take us in his Return from the Sun.

Cleon. Indeed, my Euphrofyne, the Cafe feems to be very much fo; it has been fhewn that the Comets of the Year 1618, and 1684, came very near the Earth's Orbit ; and particularly that of 1680, Nov. 11, at one o'Clock in the Afternoon, was at fo fmall a Distance, that had the Earth been about that Part of its Orbit, God only knows what the Confequences might have been of so near an Appulfe of fo terrible a Body! If a Comet fhould thus encounter the Earth at its Return from the Sun a little too nearly, it would undoubtedly confume the Earth, and all its Inhabitants, as fo many Moths ; it might convert the Matter of the prefent Earth into a different Kind of Subftance, and render it an Habitation fit for Beings of a quite different Nature from ours.

Euphrof. Upon my Word, Cleonicus, you have made me almoft afraid to live upon the Earth. As the befieged in a Town expect and fear the dire Approach, and Fall of Bombs, fo the Inhabitants of the Earth may fear the fudden, dreadful Shock of Comets, and expect one Day or other to have the Globe dafhed to Pieces about their Ears, and themselves abforbed in an Abyss of Water or Fire!

Cleon. Be not difmayed, Euphrofyne; thefe are great, but rare Events; for, though they are poffible in Nature, yet fome Things make it a very great Chance if they happen at all with regard to any definite Time. For the Planes of all the Comets Orbits are raised above those of the Planets; fo that there is but one particular Place in the Orbit of a Comet where its Tail can pafs over the Orbits of the Planets; and it is fo many Chances to one, that a Planet happens to be in that Part of its Orbit at that particular Time, that we have no Reafon to fear any fuch Cataftrophe: And they, who have talked about

fuch

fuch terrible Things, may be rather said to have dreamed, than demonftrated any fuch future Events.

Euphrof. But pray, Cleonicus, can you affign any more innocent and lefs terrifying Ufes of Comets, than those you have mentioned ?

Cleon. Yes; fome Philofophers, and those of the firft Rank, imagine, that, by the Rarefaction and spreading of the Vapours of the Tails of Comets, they fupply the Planets with Moisture, which they fuppofe continually decreases by Vegetation, Putrefaction, &c. They alfo farther fuppofe, that Comets, in their feveral Revolutions, approach nearer and nearer to the Sun, till at last they fall into, and supply the Sun with fresh Fuel, Fire, and Heat. But how Comets fhould do this, without they confift of a very combuftible Matter, of a much larger Bulk, and made much quicker Returns, is not very eafy to conceive. And thus I have told you, as much as is generally known of the Comets; and shall at prefent conclude with Mr. Baker's Defcription of a Comet in the following Lines.

At his Command, affrighting human Kind,
COMETS drag on their blazing Lengths behind:
Nor, as we think, do they at Random rove,
But, in determin'd Times through long Ellipfes move.
And though fometimes they near approach the Sun,
Sometimes beyond our Syftem's Orbit run;
Throughout their Race they act their Maker's Will,
His Power declare, his Purpofes fulfil.

Univerfe, Page 19.

DIALOGUE XVI.

On the Ufe of the COMETARIUM.

SIN

Euphrofyne.

INCE you gave me the Lecture on Comets, you have filled my Head with fuch odd kind of Ideas, that I fcarcely know whether I hope or fear moft to see a Comet; but, dear Cleonicus, fince that is fhortly to be the Cafe, and a Comet we must behold, if your Aftronomical Prediction is to be regarded, I think I may as well take Courage, and refolve to attend the important Event undauntedly.

Cleon. Fortitude, my Euphrofyne, is an excellent Virtue; and here I must admonith you to speak with more Reverence of aftronomical Predictions, or elfe you may chance, one Day or other, to be accofted in the Pontifical Stile, and be told, That Aftronomers only have InfalTibility on their Side; that their Prophecies are facred and certain Truths; that they must be believed, or that an implicit Faith in all they fay is your highest Duty, and abfolutely neceflary to your future Reputation; that

Euphrof. Hold, Cleonicus, too much of this kind of Denunciation does not found well after a liberal Education; you are now talking to a Woman, and they are frail Creatures, God knows; if we fhould be guilty now and then of a little aftronomical Infidelity, we hope it may be looked upon as a venal Crime, and for which we may be entitled to an Indulgence.

Cleon. You are quite on the right Side of the Question, Sifter; the Ladies are fure to be forgiven, with or without Confeffion.Now we are on this Subject, what will you think of a Prophefy or Prediction of a Heathen, the celebrated Seneca, in the following Words?

"I cannot affent to our Philofophers, nor think the "Comets are Fires fuddenly kindled, which appear "a-while, and are then extinguished; but I reckon them

66

among the eternal Works of Nature. - And why "fhould we wonder that Comets (fuch a rare Spectacle "in the World) fhould not yet be reftricted by certain "Laws; nor have the Times of their appearing or dif

"appearing

"appearing known, as they take their Courfes through "fuch prodigious Intervals of Space. The Time will "come when a Day fhall bring to light, and the Diligence of a future Age difcover, thofe Things which now lie hid.

"The Time will come in which Pofterity will won"der that we were ignorant of Things fo very plain.→ "A PERSON fhall one Day arife, who shall demonstrate into what Regions the Comets wander, why they move fo Separately from the rest of the Planets, and how large, "and what kind of Bodies they are."

I fay, dear Sifter, what can you think of all this, when if you could read Sir Ifaac's Principia, and there fee every Particular of this whole Prediction fulfilled to a Tittle, and no other Man befides Sir Ifaac did so much as even to attempt the arduous Tafk?

Euphrof. Think! why what could one think lefs than that he prophefied of that very great Man.-But tho' I am not able to understand the Writings of that Philofopher, yet, if I remember right, you once told me, that you could make the Manner of the Comet's Motion intelligible by a proper Inftrument, as well as thofe of the Planets.

Cleon. I did fo; the Inftrument I mean is called the COMETARIUM, and which I shall now fpend one Quarter of an Hour in explaining to you.-Here is the Machine.

Euphrof. And a beautiful one it is; I can almost tell the Use of it by its very Appearance; the Brafs-ball C, is the Comet, I dare fay; and the long oval Groove, the Orbit in which it is to move about the Sun, which I obferve is engraved at one End of it.

Cleon. Very right, my Euphrofyne; this Inftrument fhews the Motion of the Comet of the Year 1682, whofe Period is 75 Years.

Euphrof. Then that Period, or thofe Years, I fuppofe, are reprefented by the Circle FG, and the Hand H, pointing out the particular Year of the Period, for any Pofition of the Comet in its Orbit: am I right, Cleonicus?

Cleon. So very good is your Apprehenfion, that it almost makes a Defcription of the Inftrument unneceflary. Euphrof. Not fo, indeed; for I can fcarce tell what Ufe that long Wire is of that goes through the Body of

the