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sun, though seemingly smaller than the dial it illuminates, is abundantly larger than this whole earth, on which so many lofty mountains rise, and such vast oceans roll. A line extending from side to side through the centre of that resplendent orb, would measure more than eight hundred thousand miles: a girdle formed to go round its circumference, would require a length of millions. Were its solid contents to be estimated, the account would overwhelm our understanding, and be almost beyond the power of language to express. we startled at these reports of philosophy? Are we ready to cry out, in a transport of surprise, "How mighty is the Being who kindled such a prodigious fire; and keeps alive, from age to age, such an enormous mass of flame!" Let us attend our philosophic guides, and we shall be brought acquainted with speculations more enlarged and more inflaming.

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This sun, with all its attendant planets, is but a very little part of the grand machine of the universe: every star, though in appearance no bigger than the diamond that glitters upon a lady's ring, is really a vast globe, like the sun in size and in glory; no less spacious, no less luminous, than the radiant source of day. So that every star is not barely a world, but the centre of a magnificent system; has a retinue of worlds, irradiated by its beams, and revolving round its attractive mfluence; all which are lost to our sight, in immeasurable wilds of ether. That the stars appear like so many diminutive and scarcely-distinguishable points, is owing to their immense and inconceivable distance. Immense and inconceivable indeed it is; since a ball, shot from the loaded cannon, and flying with unabated rapidity, must travel, at this impetuous rate, almost seven hundred thousand years, before it could reach the nearest of these twinkling luminaries!

While, beholding this vast expanse, I learn my own extreme meanness, I would also discover the abject littleness of all terrestrial things. What is the earth with all her ostentatious scenes, compared with this astonishingly grand furniture of the skies? What, but a dim speck, hardly perceivable in the map of the universe! It is observed by a very judicious writer, that, if the sun himself, which enlightens this part of the creation, were extinguished, and all the host of planetary worlds, which move about him, were annihilated, they would not be missed by an eye that can take-in the whole compass of nature, any more than a grain of sand upon the sea-shore. The bulk of which they consist, and the space which they occupy, are so exceedingly little in comparison of the whole,

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that their loss would scarcely leave a blank in the immensity of God's works. If then, not our globe only, but this whole system, be so very diminutive, what is a kingdom or a country? What are a few lordships, or the so-much-admired patrimonies of those who are styled wealthy? When I measure them with my own little pittance, they swell into proud and bloated dimensions; but, when I take the universe for my standard, how scanty is their size! how contemptible their figure! They shrink into pompous nothings.

III. ON THE APPROACH OF EVENING.-Hervey.

EVERY object, a little while ago, glared with light; but now, all appear with softened lustre. The animals harmonize with the insensible creation; and what was gay in those, as well as glittering in this, gives place to a universal gravity. Should I, at such a season, be vain and trifling, the heavens and the earth would rebuke my unseasonable levity. Therefore, be this moment devoted to thoughts, solemn as the close of day, sedate as the face of things. However my social hours are enlivened with innocent pleasantry, let the Evening, in her sober habit, toll the bell to serious consideration. Every meddling and intrusive avocation is excluded. Silence holds the door against the strife of tongues, and all the impertinences of idle conversation. The busy swarm of vain images and cajoling temptations, which beset us, with a buzzing importunity, amid the gayeties of life, are chased by these thickening shades. Here I may, without disturbance, commune with my own heart, and learn that best of sciences

TO KNOW MYSELF.

IV. SORROW FOR THE DEAD.-Washington Irving. THE sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal— every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open-this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms. though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved; when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal;-who would accept of consolation that

must be bought by forgetfulness? No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection; when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness-who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom; yet who would exchange it, even for a song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead, to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave!—the grave! It buries every error-covers every defect—extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can

look down upon the grave, even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth, that lies mouldering before him?

But the grave of those we loved-what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up, in long review, the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments, lavished upon us— -almost unheeded-in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tendernessthe solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene. The bed of death, with all its stifled griefs-its noiseless attendanceits mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of expiring love! The feeble, fluttering, thrilling-oh, how thrilling!pressure of the hand. The last, fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us, even from the threshold of existence! The faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more. assurance of affection!

Ay! go to the grave of buried love, and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience, for every past benefit unrequited-every past endearment unregarded-of that departed being, who can never-never-never return, to be soothed by thy contrition!- -If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow, of an affectionate parent,-if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth, -if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in thought, or

word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee,— if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet; then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down, sorrowing and repentant, on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tearmore deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing!

Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of nature about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of regret: but, take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living.

V.-ON HUMAN GRANDEUR.-Goldsmith.

AN alehouse-keeper, near Islington, who had long lived at the sign of the French King, upon the commencement of the last war pulled down his old sign, and put up that of the Queen of Hungary. Under the influence of her red face and golden sceptre he continued to sell ale, till she was no longer the favourite of his customers; he changed her, therefore, some time ago, for the King of Prussia, who may probably be changed, in turn, for the next great man that shall be set up for vulgar admiration.

In this manner the great are dealt out, one after the other, to the gazing crowd. When we have sufficiently wondered at one of them, he is taken in, and another exhibited in his room, who seldom holds his station long ;-for the mob are ever pleased with variety.

I must own, I have such an indifferent opinion of the vulgar, that I am ever led to suspect that merit which raises their shout; at least I am certain to find those great, and sometimes good men, who find satisfaction in such acclamations, made worse by it; and history has too frequently taught me, that the head which has grown this day giddy with the roar of the million, has, the very next, been fixed upon a pole.

There is scarce a village in Europe, and not one university, that is not furnished with its little great men. The head of a petty corporation, who opposes the designs of a prince, who would tyrannically force his subjects to save their best clothes

for Sundays; the puny pedant, who finds one undiscovered quality in the polypus, or describes an unheeded process in the skeleton of a mole, and whose mind, like his microscope, perceives nature only in detail; the rhymer, who makes smooth verses, and paints to our imagination when he should only speak to our hearts; all equally fancy themselves walking forward to immortality, and desire the crowd behind them to look on. The crowd takes them at their word. Patriot, philosopher, and poet, are shouted in their train. "Where was

there ever so much merit seen? no times so important as our own! Ages, yet unborn, shall gaze with wonder and applause!" To such music the important pigmy moves forward, bustling and swelling, and aptly compared to a puddle in a storm.

I bave lived to see generals, who once had crowds hallooing aiter them wherever they went, who were bepraised by newspapers and magazines, those echoes of the voice of the vulgar, and yet they have long sunk into merited obscurity, with scarce even an epitaph left to flatter. A few years ago the herring-fishery employed all Grub-street; it was the topic in every coffee-house, and the burden of every ballad. We were to drag up oceans of gold from the bottom of the sea; we were to supply all Europe with herrings upon our own terms. At present we hear no more of all this. We have fished up very little gold, that I can learn ; nor do we furnish the world with herrings as was expected. Let us wait but a few years longer, and we shall find all our expectations-a herring-fishery!

VI. THE PLEASURES OF SCIENCE.-Lord Brougham.

To pass our time in the study of the sciences, has, in all ages, been reckoned one of the most dignified and happy of human occupations; and the name of philosopher, or lover of wisdom, is given to him who leads such a life. But it is by no means necessary that a man should do nothing else than study known truths, and explore new, in order to earn this high title. Some of the greatest philosophers, in all ages, have been engaged in the pursuits of active life; and he who, in whatever station his lot may be cast, prefers the refined and elevating pleasures of knowledge, to the low gratification of the senses, richly deserves the name of a Philosopher.

It is easy to show that there is a positive gratification resulting from the study of the sciences. If it is a pleasure to gratify curiosity-to know what we are ignorant of-to have

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