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"Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them; thou hast thy music too,
While barred clouds bloom the softly dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river shallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn ;
Hedge crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden croft,

And gathering swallows twitter from the skies."

-KEATS

"It was a fair and mild autumnal sky,

And earth's ripe pleasures met the admiring eye,
As a rich beauty, when her bloom is lost,
Appears with more magnificence and cost."

-CRABBE

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"The contemplation of the works of creation elevates the mind to the admiration of whatever is great and noble, accomplishing the object of all study, which is to inspire the love of truth, of wisdom, of beauty, especially of goodness, the highest beauty, and of that supreme and eternal Mind which contains all truth and wisdom, all beauty and goodness."-MARY SOMERVILLE.

O discern the luminous point which should guide

us in the shadows of the infinite, is the gift of genius. The first to discern this point in astronomy, the illustrious Kepler thereby succeeded in formulating those laws, or rather rules, by which the movements of the stars are regulated. How did he succeed? How did he arrive at a goal so much to be desired? By intelligence in full possession of itself. It was by abstracting his thoughts from all systematic conceptions, -the shackles of science; it was by defying the tradi tional authority which had so long enslaved men's minds; it was by interrogating nature, which leaves all liberty to her interrogator, that Kepler was able to de

T

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A UNIFORM MOVEMENT.

serve and win the glorious title of "legislator of the heavens," -a title which we must not, however, understand too literally; it bears witness only to the power of intellect.

Let us attempt, at a modest distance, to proceed like Kepler; let us make astronomy without troubling ourselves concerning astronomers. This is the sole means of seizing the luminous point which should guide our steps.

The movement, in virtue of which every star performs the circuit of heaven in four-and-twenty hours, is incessantly reproduced in a uniform and a constant manner. The acquisition of this first fact, simple as it seems, was a somewhat laborious task, and undoubtedly dates back to a distant antiquity. But now comes another fact, where observation demands the closest mental attention, and which is of a more recent discovery.

To comprehend it clearly, let us first call to mind that the moment when the sun crosses the Equator,-whether to return into the northern hemisphere (at the spring equinox), or into the southern (at the autumn equinox),—is instantaneous. More than one way exists of determining this moment exactly; but here we need not enter upon the subject.

Is the interval of time occupied by the sun in travelling from the spring to the autumn equinox equal to the interval which our luminary requires to pass from the autumn equinox to the vernal?

A singular question, you reply. Who, indeed, would venture to maintain that the number of days, hours, minutes,

WHO WAS THE INNOVATOR?

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seconds, was not exactly the same in the one case as in the other?

Well, the period is not the same; and, therefore, merely to propound this question was a masterpiece of genius. For no ordinary intellectual audacity was needed to doubt the reality of the supposed perfect circle which the sun apparently describes according to the recognised authorities-in its uniform progress around the globe; that globe believed by all the early astronomers to be imperturbably and everlastingly situated in the centre of their thrice-sacred geometrical figure. dogma being accepted as infallible, there was every evidence that the two intervals of time, which divided the astronomical year into two moieties, would be of equal duration. It did not occur to the mind of any one of the faithful that the sojourn of the sun, in his circular and uniform movement, might be longer or shorter in the northern than in the southern hemisphere.

This

What, then, was the name of the audacious innovator who ventured upon putting forth so revolutionary a suggestion?

It was Hipparchus. At least it was he who, confidently relying upon his observations, was the first to affirm that the sun remains longer in the northern than in the southern hemispheres; or, more accurately speaking, that its passage from the spring to the autumn equinox occupies 187 days, while from the autumn to the spring equinox the duration of its course is only 178 days 6 hours (nearly). The year of 3651 days-that is, the Egyptian year, which was universally adopted by the ancient astronomers-was thus discovered

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THE FOLLY OF DOGMA.

to be really divided into two unequal portions, although, theoretically, the sun ought to occupy exactly the same space of time in passing from the spring to the autumn, as from the autumn to the spring equinox.

The fact pointed out and attested by Hipparchus had an influence which he never anticipated on the progress of science. In opposition to all the systems previously designed by man, it followed, in the first place, that the movement of the sun, in relation to a mean movement, must sometimes be accelerated, sometimes be retarded; that the solar arc described in a given time would be greater in winter than in summer.

Astronomers who, trammelled by particular theories, were unable and unwilling to accept of any new light, immediately hastened to raise, as is invariably the case with those who defend a bad cause, a subsidiary and damaging question. They asked whether those inequalities of the sun's movement were real, or only apparent; whether they were more than a mere optical phenomenon, arising from the sun's position vis-à-vis to an observer placed on the earth's surface. And they unhesitatingly pronounced in favour of the appearance, and against the reality.

But man, says an old adage, is always punished after the manner of his sin. Dogmatic and obstinate authority involved our anti-revolutionary astronomers in fresh complications. Such is the case, too, very frequently, in the domain of theology!

Does the sun-the sun as each of us beholds him-ever

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