Extracts from Nichol's Planetary Systems. THE obscurity of the times in which he lived, rests over the early character of Copernicus. We know not how far favourable circumstances contributed to the development of his genius, or whether, without peculiar advantages, he owes all to an inborn energy. But whatever his intellectual culture, the greatness of his mind could be borrowed from no one; as of all who had yet lived, he was the earliest to accomplish a task most difficult for man. Feeling, with the intuitive force of the highest genius, that those popular systems of the heavens could not be true, and, at the same time, recognising that the logic or mere reasoning which sustained them was impregnable, he threw from him the weight of ages, and quietly asked whether that fundamental tenet, which asserts that the earth is motionless, might not be false? The effort required to hesitate on a point which all mankind-up to that moment-had undoubtingly believed, and which had now interwoven itself with every mode of thought, was an achievement for the loftiest order of genius. The question being put, it required very superior, but not uncommon talent, to follow it to its conclusions. Indued by that modesty which invaribly characterises minds of the finest texture, this great man-immediately on obtaining sight of the idea which moved him-turned again to the elder philosophers, lest there might be precious relics buried there to inspire and encourage him; and accordingly, he did find certain hints touching on a simple order of things; hints, which his correct and discriminating intellect speedily methodized into that system which, in the somewhat hyperbolical language of his successor, Tycho, "moved the earth from its foundations, stopped the revolution of the firmament, made the sun stand still, and subverted the whole ancient order of the universe." What a change must come over the mind, when from the idea 19 137 138 EXTRACTS FROM NICHOL'S PLANETARY SYSTEMS. that this Earth is the centre around which all things are symmetrically arranged-the body for whose sake the brilliant fret-work of the skies was hung up-we pass to the conception that it is merely one of a small class of orbs attached to the Sun, and by no means the largest of these; and that those multitudes of Stars, greater than the eye can number, or even the imagination conceive, are globes like the Sun, only lessened by their immeasurable distances, but around which planets may also roll, and all space be thus filled with motion and life! Doubtless there is here wherewith to stun the self-important, and startle the timid; and it is not astonishing that demurs arose among believers in the narrow creeds of those days; but indeed, that mind only can be afraid to look at the Universe as it typifies the greatness of its great Creator, which knows not the comprehensiveness of the glance of an Almighty eye. The love which warms the blue depths of space, holds within it also our microscopic earth, which even in its most microscopic atoms, teems with fine arrangements, so minute and manifold, that man is yet baffled in his ambition to know them all, where the smallest creature that creeps along the ground, has its home, its rooftree, and its young, its passions, affections, and loves,-where one drop of water swarms with myriads of living beings, each. drinking up life and happiness within the sphere of laws that know no caprice, and is exquisitely adapted to its place! Yes! Oh reverent adorer, the God of these shining skies, is also the Being who provides the young ravens with their food! But even the interest of these general views does not incline us to overlook the fine harmony as to minor arrangements which now appeared in the scheme of the Heavens. The two simple motions of the Earth produce our day and year. Revolving on its axis in twentyfour hours, the Earth turns every part of its surface in that period towards the Sun; whence a regular succession of light and darkness and to a peculiarity connected with its yearly orbitual motion we owe the change of seasons. The source of this most EXTRACTS FROM NICHOL'S PLANETARY SYSTEMS. 139 pleasing variety, is in the inclination of the axis around which the Earth daily rotates to the path or orbit through which it moves annually. The inclination of the axis to the orbit, causes the Sun's rays to fall more or less directly on the same part of the Earth, in different parts of its orbit, and hence, the variety of their heating effects. How exquisite the adjustment of our world to such variety! Think of the action of winter as a season of sleep and refreshment to vegetation,-the bursting of its dormant powers in spring,-its manhood and health in summer,—and in gentle autumn, the time of the sere and yellow leaf! Though observation informs us that there are spheres in which little of this change is seen, and where doubtless, all arrangements are equally beautiful; we may be pardoned for contemplating with especial interest so much of the course of our own world, and permit our sympathies to flow freely with the poet, who thus opens his fervent, but somewhat pantheistic hymn : "These as they change, Almighty Father, These are but the varied God!" On matters of this kind, men feel variously; I confess that to me the sight of such exquisite adaptation-an adaptation of phenomena mighty and minute, affecting as the seasons do, although mysteriously, not only the death but the birth of human and all animated beings-it does appear that such precision of workmanship and steadfast solemnity of march, are as strong and eloquent proofs of the presence of the Godhead, as those deviations from ordinary agencies which, in the course of providence, the Almighty has thought fit to produce; and that with a far loftier and more intelligent ardour than that of the Egyptian magician, we may exclaim, as we humbly contemplate, "The finger of God is there." Iliagara. FROM THE SPANISH OF JOSE MARIA HEREDIA. My lyre! give me my lyre! my bosom feels Thou, with thy rushing waters, dost restore I have been touched with joy; and when the sea, But never yet the madness of the sea Hath moved me, as thy grandeur moves me now. Thou flowest on in quiet, till thy waves The hoarse and rapid whirlpools there! My brain . NIAGARA. Upon the hurrying waters, and my sight They reach they leap the barrier-the abyss What seeks my restless eye? Why are not here, About the jaws of this abyss, the palms ? Ah! the delicious palms, that on the plains But no, Niagara, thy forest pines 141 |