the slighting of the rest. I often think, what a marvellous, what a miraculous creation it would still be, did it contain nothing but insects, or even nothing but animalcules! While, as to men, beasts, birds, fishes, and herbs and flowers, all these come nearer to our hearts than stars; and is any one of them less admirable than the mightiest star?

CHAP. LXX.

THANKS TO ILLUSTRIOUS ASTRONOMERS AND MATHEMATICIANS. NEWTON AND HIS DOG DIAMOND. HISTORY OF JAMES FERGUSON. HIS POVERTY AND SELF-EDUCATION. KING GEORGE THE THIRD SEEKS TO BE INSTRUCTED BY HIM IN ASTRONOMY. POSSIBLE INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY GENIUS AND INDUSTRY OF FERGUSON, UPON ALL THE SUBSEQUENT PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERY IN EUROPE, TO THIS DAY. LOVE AND PATRONAGE OF ARTS, SCIENCES, AND LETTERS, BY KING GEORGE THE THIRD. HIS INFLUENCE UPON ASTRONOMICAL RESEARCH.

WITH respect to all that in these pages I have told you, what thanks do we not owe to the industry and genius of so many illustrious astronomers, ancient and modern, dead and living, English and foreign! What should we have known, if we had been left to look at the heavens by ourselves, and denied the help which has been afforded us, of all the wisdom accumulated through ages upon ages?

It would have pleased me, had my book been large enough, to repeat many of the names to

B B

which we are so much indebted; with additions, to several of them, of remarkable passages in their history, either personal or scientific. But I content myself with offerings of this kind to two alone, parts of what I shall relate of whom has the advantage of conveying even more general lessons, with strong claims on your esteem.

The well-known anecdote of Sir Isaac Newton and his lap-dog Diamond, shows with what serenity men so laborious and so eminent as Newton, can sometimes bear, not with the severest mortifications only, but also with the heaviest misfortunes, as to their pursuits!

Sir Isaac, upon a quantity of paper, had set down long trains of the most arduous astronomical calculations; and the paper lay upon his table. But he had a favourite little lap-dog, whose name was Diamond'; and, one day, in his absence, the unlucky dog contrived to throw down so much ink upon the papers as wholly to obliterate their contents. Those contents were

so intricate, and had been produced with so much labour, that Sir Isaac, upon the discovery of the accident, at once renounced all idea of restoring them; yet he contented himself with saying to Diamond, "Ah! Diamond, Diamond, you little know what mischief you have done!"

But I shall mention briefly the name of Ferguson, because, besides that Ferguson was an

eminent astronomer, his history shows how much even young star-gazers may do for themselves, in the way of study, if they have but genius and application!

Ferguson was a poor boy, who, in his whole life, never received above a half year's teaching at school; and who yet lived to attain to the highest eminence in astronomy and mechanics.

Being put into the occupation of a shepherdboy, his nights were spent in studying the stars; while, in the day-time, he made models of mills and spinning-wheels. When his day's work was over, wrapping a blanket or a plaid about him, (as my picture shows him at the end of my chapter,) he went into the fields, where, stretching a thread, with small beads upon it, he slid the beads till they hid particular stars from his eye; and, then, laying down the thread upon a piece of paper, he marked the stars upon it according to their respective positions.

When he was grown up, he wrote and lec