works are, a Translation of the Four Gospels, worthy of his talents, some sermons preached on public occasions, and a series of Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, which were not published till after his death. It is worthy of remark that Hume himself admitted the 'ingenuity' of Campbell's reply to his sceptical of whose nature, and the eternity of whose duration, joined with the omnipotence of his power, though they surpass our conceptions, yet exalt them to the highest. In general, all objects that are greatly raised above us, or far removed from us, either in space or in time, are apt to strike us as great. Our viewing them as through the mist of distance or antiquity is favour-opinions, and the 'great learning' of the author. The able to the impressions of their sublimity. As obscurity, so disorder too is very compatible with grandeur; nay, frequently heightens it. Few things that are strictly regular and methodical appear sublime. We see the limits on every side; we feel ourselves confined; there is no room for the mind's exerting any great effort. Exact proportion of parts, though it enters often into the beautiful, is much disregarded in the sublime. A great mass of rocks, thrown together by the hand of nature with wildness and confusion, strike the mind with more grandeur than if they had been adjusted to one another with the most accurate symmetry. well-known hypothesis of Hume is, that no testimony for any kind of miracle can ever amount to a probability, much less to a proof. To this Dr Campbell opposed the argument that testimony has a natural and original influence on belief, antecedent to experience, in illustration of which he remarked, that the earliest assent which is given to testimony by children, and which is previous to all experience, is in fact the most unlimited. His answer is divided into two parts; first, that miracles are capable of proof from testimony, and religious miracles not less than others; and, secondly, that the miracles on which the belief of Christianity is founded, are suffiIn the feeble attempts which human art can make ciently attested. Campbell had no fear for the retowards producing grand objects (feeble, I mean, insult of such discussions:-'I do not hesitate to comparison with the powers of nature), greatness of affirm,' he says, 'that our religion has been indebted dimensions always constitutes a principal part. No to the attempts, though not to the intentions, of its pile of buildings can convey any idea of sublimity, bitterest enemies. They have tried its strength, unless it be ample and lofty. There is, too, in archi- indeed, and, by trying, they have displayed its tecture, what is called greatness of manner, which strength; and that in so clear a light, as we could seems chiefly to arise from presenting the object to us in one full point of view, so that it shall make its viewed it in. Let them, therefore, write; let them never have hoped, without such a trial, to have impression whole, entire, and undivided upon the mind. A Gothic cathedral raises ideas of grandeur argue, and, when arguments fail, even let them in our minds by its size, its height, its awful obscu- should be heartily sorry that ever in this island, the cavil against religion as much as they please; I rity, its strength, its antiquity, and its durability. There still remains to be mentioned one class of asylum of liberty, where the spirit of Christianity is better understood (however defective the inhabisublime objects, which may be called the moral or sentimental sublime, arising from certain exertions of tants are in the observance of its precepts) than in the human mind, from certain affections and actions any other part of the Christian world; I should, I of our fellow-creatures. These will be found to be all, say, be sorry that in this island so great a disservice were done to religion as to check its adversaries in or chiefly of that class, which comes under the name of magnanimity or heroism; and they produce an any other way than by returning a candid answer effect extremely similar to what is produced by the to their objections. I must at the same time acview of grand objects in nature; filling the mind with knowledge, that I am both ashamed and grieved admiration, and elevating it above itself. Wherever, when I observe any friends of religion betray so in some critical and high situation, we behold a man great a diffidence in the goodness of their cause (for to this diffidence alone can it be imputed), as to show uncommonly intrepid, and resting upon himself, superior to passion and to fear; animated by some great an inclination for recurring to more forcible methods. principle to the contempt of popular opinion, of selfish The assaults of infidels, I may venture to prophecy, interest, of dangers, or of death, there we are struck will never overturn our religion. They will prove not more hurtful to the Christian system, if it be allowed to compare small things with the greatest, than the boisterous winds are said to prove to the sturdy oak. They shake it impetuously for a time, and loudly threaten its subversion; whilst, in effect, they only serve to make it strike its roots the deeper, and stand the firmer ever after.' with a sense of the sublime. High virtue is the most natural and fertile source of this moral sublimity. However, on some occasions, where virtue either has no place, or is but imperfectly displayed, yet if extraordinary vigour and force of mind be discovered, we are not insensible to a degree of grandeur in the character; and from the splendid conqueror, or the daring conspirator, whom we are far from approving, we cannot withhold our admiration. DR GEORGE CAMPBELL. DR GEORGE CAMPBELL, professor of divinity and afterwards principal of Marischal college, Aberdeen, was a theologian and critic of more vigorous intellect and various learning than Dr Blair. His Dissertation on Miracles, written in reply to Hume, is a conclusive and masterly piece of reasoning; and his Philosophy of Rhetoric (published in 1776) is perhaps the best book of the kind since Aristotle. Most of the other works on this subject are little else but compilations, but Campbell brought to it a high degree of philosophical acumen and learned research. Its utility is also equal to its depth and originality: the philosopher finds in it exercise for his ingenuity, and the student may safely consult it for its practical suggestions and illustrations. Dr Campbell's other In the same manly spirit, and reliance on the ultimate triumph of truth, Dr Campbell was opposed to the penal laws against the Catholics; and in 1779, when the country was agitated with that intolerant zeal against Popery, which in the following year burst out in riots in London, he issued an Address to the People of Scotland, remarkable for its cogency of argument and its just and enlightened sentiments, For this service to true religion and toleration the mob of Aberdeen broke the author's windows, and nicknamed him 'Pope Campbell.' In 1795, when far advanced in life, Dr Campbell received a pension of £300 from the Crown, on which he resigned his professorship, and his situation as principal of Marischal college. He enjoyed this well-earned reward only one year, dying in 1796, in his seventyseventh year. With the single exception of Dr Robertson the historian (who shone in a totally different walk), the name of Dr Campbell is the greatest which the Scottish church can number among its clergy. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. DR SAMUEL JOHNSON, the whole is the injustice done to some of our greatest masters of song, in consequence of the political or personal prejudices of the author. To Milton he is strikingly unjust, though his criticism on Paradise Lost is able and profound. Gray is treated with a coarseness and insensibility derogatory only to the critic; and in general, as we have before had occasion to remark, the higher order of imaginative poetry suffers under the ponderous hand of Johnson. Its beauties were too airy and ethereal for his grasp too subtle for his feeling or understanding. A few extracts are subjoined, to illustrate his peculiar but impressive and animated style. [From the Preface to the Dictionary.] It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward. I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a dictionary of the English language, which, while it was employed in the cultivation of every species of literature, has itself been hitherto neglected; suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into wild exuberance; resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion; and exposed to the corruptions of ignorance, This department of our literature was unusually rich at the present period, as it included nearly all the great names that shone in poetry, fiction, politics, philosophy, and criticism. First, as exercising a more commanding influence than any other of his contemporaries, may be mentioned DR JOHNSON, already distinguished as a moral poet and essayist. In 1755 Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language, which had occupied the greater part of his time for seven years. In 1765 appeared his edition of Shakspeare, containing little that is valuable in the way of annotation, but introduced by a powerful and masterly preface. In 1770 and 1771 he wrote two political pamphlets in support of the measures of government, The False Alarm, and Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting the Falkland Islands. Though often harsh, contemptuous, and intolerant, these pamphlets are admirable pieces of composition-full of nerve and controversial zeal. In 1775 appeared his Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland; and in 1781 his Lives of the Poets. It was Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dicthe felicity of Johnson, as of Dryden, to improve as tionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the an author as he advanced in years, and to write best pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, after he had passed that period of life when many doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions men are almost incapable of intellectual exertion. from the paths through which learning and genius In reviewing the above works, little other language press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowneed be employed than that of eulogy. The Dic-ing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates tionary is a valuable practical work, not remarkable their progress. Every other author may aspire to praise; for philological research, but for its happy and the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, luminous definitions, the result of great sagacity, pre- and even this negative recompense has been yet cision of understanding, and clearness of expression. granted to very few. A few of the definitions betray the personal feelings and peculiarities of the author, and have been much ridiculed. For example, Excise,' which (as a Tory hating Walpole and the Whig excise act) he defines, A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.' A pension is defined to be an allowance made to No book was ever turned from one language into any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state-idiom; this is the most mischievous and comprehenanother without imparting something of its native hireling for treason to his country.' After such a sive innovation; single words may enter by thousands, definition, it is scarcely to be wondered that Johnson and the fabric of the tongue continue the same; but paused, and felt some compunctious visitings' before he accepted a pension himself! Oats he defines, A the single stones of the building, but the order of the new phraseology changes much at once; it alters not grain which in England is generally given to horses, columns. If an academy should be established for but in Scotland supports the people.' This gave the cultivation of our style-which I, who can never mortal offence to the natives of Scotland, and is wish to see dependence multiplied, hope the spirit of hardly yet forgiven; but the best reply was the English liberty will hinder or destroy-let them, inhappy observation of Lord Elibank, ' Yes, and where stead of compiling grammars and dictionaries, enwill you find such horses and such men? The deavour, with all their influence, to stop the license Journey to the Western Isles' makes no pretension of translators, whose idleness and ignorance, if it be to scientific discovery, but it is an entertaining and suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect finely written work. In the Highlands, the poetical of France. imagination of Johnson expanded with the new scenery and forms of life presented to his contemplation. His love of feudalism, of clanship, and of ancient Jacobite families, found full scope; and as he was always a close observer, his descriptions convey much pleasing and original information. His complaints of the want of woods in Scotland, though dwelt upon with a ludicrous perseverance and querulousness, had the effect of setting the landlords to plant their bleak moors and mountains, and improve the aspect of the country. The Lives of the Poets' have a freedom of style, a vigour of thought, and happiness of illustration, rarely attained even by their author. The plan of the work was defective, as the lives begin only with Cowley, excluding all the previous poets from Chaucer downwards. Some feeble and worthless rhymesters also obtained niches in Johnson's gallery; but the most serious defect of and caprices of innovation. | In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology, without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left to time; much of my life has been whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. The man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force on the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona. [Parallel between Pope and Dryden.] [From the Lives of the Poets."] lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me; but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if, by my assistance, foreign nations and distant ages gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle. When I am animated by this wish, look with pleasure on my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become popular, I have not promised to myself; a few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance into contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert, who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he whose design includes whatever language can express, must Integrity of understanding and nicety of discernoften speak of what he does not understand; that a ment were not allotted in a less proportion to Dryden writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden's mind was end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical which Scaliger compares to the labours of the anvil prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and the mine; that what is obvious is not always and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to known, and what is known is not always present; apply all the judgment that he had. He wrote, and that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigi- professed to write, merely for the people; and when lance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and he pleased others he contented himself. He spent no casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; time in struggles to rouse latent powers; he never and that the writer shall often in vain trace his attempted to make that better which was already memory at the moment of need for that which yester-good, nor often to mend what he must have known to day he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow. consideration; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it from his mind; for when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude. Pope professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole life with unvaried liberality; and perhaps his character may receive some illustration, if he be compared with his master. Pope was not content to satisfy: he desired to excel, and therefore always endeavoured to do his best: he did not court the candour, but dared the judgment of his reader, and expecting no indulgence from others, he showed none to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and punetilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven. In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amid inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an at- For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his tempt which no human powers have hitherto com- hands, while he considered and reconsidered them. pleted. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now The only poems which can be supposed to have been immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be written with such regard to the times as might hasten yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and their publication, were the two satires of Thirtydelusive; if the aggregated knowledge and co-ope-eight, of which Dodsley told me that they were rating diligence of the Italian academicians did not brought to him by the author that they might be secure them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied fairly copied. Almost every line,' he said, critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon then written twice over; I gave him a clean transcript, their work, were obliged to change its economy, and which he sent sometime afterwards to me for the press, give their second edition another form, I may surely with almost every line written twice over a second be contented without the praise of perfection, which, if time.' I could obtain in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise. [Reflections on Landing at Iona.] [From the Journey to the Western Isles."] We were now treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, Was His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their publication, was not strictly true. His parental attention never abandoned them; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have revised the 'Iliad,' and freed it from some of its imperfections; and the Essay on Criticism' received many improvements after its first appearance. It will seldom be found that he altered without adding clearness, elegance, or vigour. Pope had perhaps the judgment of Dryden, but Dryden certainly wanted the diligence of Pope. In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation, and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope. Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both excelled likewise in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied, that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind, Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid, Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation, Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller. our late contests with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putrefaction; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of hopeless misery; and were at last whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without notice and without remembrance. By incommodious encampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless and enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies sluggishly melted away. Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part, with little effect. The wars of civilised nations make very slow changes in the system of empire. The public perceives scarcely any alteration but an increase of debt; and the few individuals who are benefited are not supposed to have the clearest right to their advantages. If he that shared the danger enjoyed the profit, and after bleeding in the battle, grew rich by the victory, he might show his gains without envy. But at the conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recompensed for the death of multitudes and the expense of millions, but by contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissaries, whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations? OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet, that quality without which judgment is cold and knowledge is inert, that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates, the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigour Pope The 'Citizen of the World,' by GOLDSMITH, was pubhad only a little, because Dryden had more; for every lished in a collected shape in 1762, and his 'Essays' other writer since Milton must give place to Pope; about the same time. As a light critic, a sportive and even of Dryden it must be said, that if he has yet tender and insinuating moralist, and observer of brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems. Dry-men and manners, we have no hesitation in placing den's performances were always hasty, either excited Goldsmith far above Johnson. His chaste humour, by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and poetical fancy, and admirable style, render these published without correction. What his mind could essays (for the Citizen of the World consists of desupply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all tached pieces) a mine of lively and profound thought, that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory Old Soldier, Beau Tibbs, the Reverie at the Boar's happy imagery, and pure English. The story of the caution of Pope enabled him to condense his senti- Head Tavern, and the Strolling Player, are in the ments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all finest vein of story-telling; while the Eastern Apothat study might produce or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Popelogue, Asem, an Eastern Tale, and Alcander and continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. This parallel will, I hope, when it is well considered, be found just; and if the reader should suspect me, as I suspect myself, of some partial fondness for the memory of Dryden, let him not too hastily condemn me, for meditation and inquiry may, perhaps, show him the reasonableness of my determination. [Picture of the Miseries of War.] [From the 'Thoughts on the Falkland Islands."] It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a triumph. Some, indeed, must perish in the successful field, but they die upon the bed of honour, resign their lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory, smile in death! The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroic fiction. War has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword. Of the thousands and ten thousands that perished in Septimius, are tinged with the light of true poetry life, and the fashion of our estate,' we see the and imagination. Where the author speaks of actual workings of experience and a finely meditative lished till after his death, is imbued with the same mind. The History of Animated Nature,' not pubgraces of composition. Goldsmith was no naturalist, strictly speaking, but his descriptions are often vivid and beautiful, and his history is well calculated to awaken a love of nature and a study of its various phenomena. [Scenery of the Alps.] [From the History of the Earth and Animated Nature."] Nothing can be finer or more exact than Mr Pope's description of a traveller straining up the Alps. Every mountain he comes to he thinks will be the last: he finds, however, an unexpected hill rise before him; and that being scaled, he finds the highest summit almost at as great a distance as before. Upon quitting the plain, he might have left a green and fertile soil, and a climate warm and pleasing. As he ascends, the ground assumes a more russet colour, the grass becomes more mossy, and the weather more moderate. When he is still higher, the weather becomes more cold, and the earth more barren. In this dreary passage he is often entertained with a little valley of surprising verdure, caused by the reflected heat of the sun collected into a narrow spot on the surrounding heights. But it much more frequently happens that he sees only frightful precipices beneath, and lakes of amazing depth, from whence rivers are formed, and fountains derive their original. On those places next the highest summits vegetation is scarcely carried on here and there a few plants of the most hardy kind appear. The air is intolerably coldeither continually refrigerated with frosts, or disturbed with tempests. All the ground here wears an eternal covering of ice and snow, that seem continually accumulating. Upon emerging from this war of the elements, he ascends into a purer and serener region, where vegetation is entirely ceased-course, entirely subject to its superior influence. Were where the precipices, composed entirely of rocks, rise perpendicularly above him; while he views beneath him all the combat of the elements, clouds at his feet, and thunders darting upwards from their bosoms below. A thousand meteors, which are never seen on the plain, present themselves. Circular rainbows, mock suns, the shadow of the mountain projected upon the body of the air, and the traveller's own image reflected as in a looking-glass upon the opposite cloud. [A Sketch of the Universe.] [From the same.] that, suspending the constant exertion of his power, he endued matter with a quality by which the universal economy of nature might be continued, without his immediate assistance. This quality is called attraction, a sort of approximating influence, which all bodies, whether terrestrial or celestial, are found to possess; and which, in all, increases as the quantity of matter in each increases. The sun, by far the greatest body in our system, is, of consequence, possessed of much the greatest share of this attracting power; and all the planets, of which our earth is one, are, of this power, therefore, left uncontrolled by any other, the sun must quickly have attracted all the bodies of our celestial system to itself; but it is equally counteracted by another power of equal efficacy; namely, a progressive force which each planet received when it was impelled forward by the divine architect upon its first formation. The heavenly bodies of our system being thus acted upon by two opposing powers; namely, by that of attraction, which draws them towards the sun, and that of impulsion, which drives them straight forward into the great void of space, they pursue a track between these contrary directions; and each, like a stone whirled about in a sling, obeying two opposite forces, circulates round its great centre of heat and motion. The world may be considered as one vast mansion, where man has been admitted to enjoy, to admire, and to be grateful. The first desires of savage nature In this manner, therefore, is the harmony of our are merely to gratify the importunities of sensual ap- planetary system preserved. The sun, in the midst, petite, and to neglect the contemplation of things, gives heat and light and circular motion to the barely satisfied with their enjoyment; the beauties of planets which surround it: Mercury, Venus, the nature, and all the wonders of creation, have but little Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, perform their concharms for a being taken up in obviating the wants stant circuits at different distances, each taking up a of the day, and anxious for precarious subsistence. time to complete its revolutions, proportioned to the Our philosophers, therefore, who have testified such greatness of the circle which it is to describe. The surprise at the want of curiosity in the ignorant, seem lesser planets, also, which are attendants upon some not to consider that they are usually employed in of the greater, are subject to the same laws; they cirmaking provisions of a more important nature-inculate with the same exactness, and are in the same providing rather for the necessities than the amuse- manner influenced by their respective centres of ments of life. It is not till our more pressing wants motion. are sufficiently supplied, that we can attend to the calls of curiosity; so that in every age scientific refinement has been the latest effort of human industry. But human curiosity, though at first slowly excited, being at last possessed of leisure for indulging its propensity, becomes one of the greatest amusements of life, and gives higher satisfactions than what even the senses can afford. A man of this disposition turns all nature into a magnificent theatre, replete with objects of wonder and surprise, and fitted up chiefly for his happiness and entertainment; he industriously examines all things, from the minutest insect to the most finished animal, and when his limited organs can no longer make the disquisition, he sends out his imagination upon new inquiries. Besides those bodies which make a part of our peculiar system, and which may be said to reside within its great circumference, there are others that frequently come among us from the most distant tracts of space, and that seem like dangerous intruders upon the beautiful simplicity of nature. These are comets, whose appearance was once so terrible to mankind, and the theory of which is so little understood at present; all we know is, that their number is much greater than that of the planets, and that, like these, they roll in orbits, in some measure obedient to solar influence. Astronomers have endeavoured to calculate the returning periods of many of them; but experience has not, as yet, confirmed the veracity of their investigations. Indeed, who can tell, when those wanderers have made their excursions into other worlds and distant systems, what obstacles may be found to oppose their progress, to accelerate their motions, or retard their return? Nothing, therefore, can be more august and striking than the idea which his reason, aided by his imagination, furnishes of the universe around him. Astronomers tell us that this earth which we inhabit forms but a very minute part in that great assemblage of But what we have hitherto attempted to sketch is bodies of which the world is composed. It is a mil- but a small part of that great fabric in which the lion of times less than the sun, by which it is en- Deity has thought proper to manifest his wisdom and lightened. The planets, also, which, like it, are sub- omnipotence. There are multitudes of other bodies ordinate to the sun's influence, exceed the earth one dispersed over the face of the heavens, that lie too rethousand times in magnitude. These, which were at mote for examination; these have no motion such as first supposed to wander in the heavens without any the planets are found to possess, and are therefore fixed path, and that took their name from their ap- called fixed stars; and from their extreme brilliancy parent deviations, have long been found to perform and their immense distance, philosophers have been their circuits with great exactness and strict regula-induced to suppose them to be suns resembling that rity. They have been discovered as forming with our earth a system of bodies circulating round the sun, all obedient to one law, and impelled by one common influence. Modern philosophy has taught us to believe, that when the great Author of nature began the work of creation, he chose to operate by second causes; and which enlivens our system. As the imagination, also, once excited, is seldom content to stop, it has fur nished each with an attendant system of planets belonging to itself, and has even induced some to deplore the fate of those systems whose imagined suns, which sometimes happens, have become no longer visible. |