ART. VI.-1. Epistles in Verse. 2. Italy, a Poem. Part Second. By Samuel Rogers VII.-Historical Outline of the Establishment of the Turks in Europe VIII.-Chronological History of the West Indies. By Captain Page 145 - 193 IX.-1. Present State of the Law. The Speech of Henry 2. A Letter to the Right Honourable Robert Peel, on the 3. Suggestions for some Alterations of the Law, on the 4. The Mirror of Parliament. Edited by John Henry Note concerning Maynooth. 241 298 Note concerning the Article on De Roos's Narrative, in No. 73. ib. I. THE Works of William Paley, D. D., with additional Ser- mons, &c. &c.; and a corrected Account of the Life and Writings of the Author. By the Rev. Edmund Paley, II.-Narrative of a Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1825-26-27. By John Franklin, Capt. R.N., F.R.S., &c., and Commander of the Expedition. Including an Account of the Progress of a Detachment to III.-Georgica Publii Virgilii Maronis, in quinque linguas con- versa:-Hispanicam a Joanne de Guzman; Germanicam -Johanne Henrico Voss; Anglicam-Gulielmo Sotheby; Italicam-Francisco Soave; Gallicam-Jacobo Delille IV.-Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain, engraved from authentic Pictures in the Galleries of the Nobility and the Public Collections of the Country: with Biographical V.-1. Observations on the Cultivation of Poor Soils, as exem- plified in the Colonies, for the Indigent, and for Orphans in Holland. By William Jacob, Esq. 2. An Account of the Poor Colonies of Holland. By a Mem- 3. De la Colonie de Fredericks-oord. Par le Baron de 4. First, Second, Third, and Fourth Reports of the Commis- sioners appointed to Inquire into the Nature and Extent of the several Bogs in Ireland, and the Practicability of ART. VI.-Isaac Comnenus. A Play Page 442 VII. Memoirs of General Miller, in the Service of the Republic VIII.-1. An Appeal to England against the New Indian Stamp 2. A View of the Present State and Future Prospects of the 448 489 - 503 IX.-Salmonia, or Days of Fly-Fishing. By an Angler 2. The Coronation Oath, considered with reference to the 3. The History of the Policy of the Church of Rome in Ire- 4. Substance of Two Speeches, delivered in the House of 5. Letters to a Friend on the State of Ireland, the Roman 7. Captain Rock Detected; or the Origin and Character of NOTE on The Veracity of the Gospels.' 535 598 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-1. Observations of the Apparent Distances and Positions of Three Hundred and Eighty Double and Triple Stars, made in the years 1821, 1822, and 1823; and compared with those of other Astronomers: together with an account of such changes as appear to have taken place in them since their first Discovery. Also, a Description of a Five-feet Equatorial Instrument employed in the Observations. By J. F. W. Herschel, Esq., F.R.S., and James South, Esq., F.R.S. London. 1825. pp. 424. And Phil. Trans. 1825. part iii. 2. Observations of the Apparent Distance and Positions of Four Hundred and Fifty-eight Double and Triple Stars, made in the Years 1823, 1824, and 1825; together with a Re-examination of Thirty-six Stars of the same description, the Distances and Positions of which were communicated in a former Memoir. By James South, Esq., F.R.S. London. 1826. pp. 412. And Phil. Trans. 1826. part i. AMONG those natural sciences which have called forth the highest powers of the mind, astronomy claims for herself the most exalted place. The bodies of which it treats are of themselves calculated to prepossess us in its favour. Their vast and inconceivable magnitude,—their distance almost infinite,-their uncountable number, and the rapidity and regularity of their movements, excite, even in ordinary men, the most intense curiosity, and to minds of higher birth hold out the noblest exercise for their powers. But while our judgment thus anticipates its pleasures and its triumphs, the imagination discovers among the starry spheres a boundless field for its creative energies. Drawing its materials from our own globe,-from its variety of life and beauty, and from the condition and destiny of our species,-it perceives in every planetary body a world like our own, teeming with new forms of life, and new orders of intelligence, and regards it as the theatre of events, whose origin, whose duration, and whose final cause, must for ever be involved in impenetrable darkness. Advancing beyond our own system, it recognises in every twinkling star the central flame of new groups of planets, and pursuing its track only in one out of an infinite number of directions, it descries system beyond system, following each other in endless succession, till it returns exhausted in its strength, and bewildered amid the number, the extent, and the magnificence of its creations. VOL. XXXVIII. NO. LXXV. B But 1 But while astronomy thus affords to our intellectual nature a field commensurate with its highest efforts, it is fraught with no less advantage to our moral being. The other sciences may, indeed, lay claim to a similar influence, for nowhere is the hand of skill unseen, or the arrangement of benevolence unfelt; but the objects which they present to us are still those of our own sublunary world. They are often too familiar to excite admiration, too much under our power to command respect,-too deeply impressed with our own mortality to enforce the lesson which they are so well fitted to suggest. The plains which we desolate, the institutions which we overturn, and the living beings which we trample upon or destroy, are not likely to be the instruments of our moral regeneration. Among scenes, indeed, where man is the tyrant, who can expect him to be the moralist or the philosopher? How different is it with the bodies which the astronomer contemplates! For man they were not made, and to them his utmost power cannot reach. The world which he inhabits forms but the fraction of an unit in the vast scale upon which they are moulded. It disappears even in the range of distance at which they are placed; and when seen from some of the nearest planets, it is but a dull speck in the firmament. Under this conviction the astronomer must feel his own comparative insignificance; and amidst the sublimity and grandeur of the material universe, the proudest spirit must be abased, and fitted for the reception of those nobler truths which can be impressed only on a humble and a softened heart. He, indeed, who has rightly interpreted the hand-writing of God in the heavens must be well prepared to appreciate it in the record of his revealed will. Though the study of astronomy thus possesses peculiar claims upon our attention, the history of the science, of the steps by which it successively attained its present state of perfection, is, in another point of view, of nearly equal interest. Commencing in the earliest ages, and carried on with but little interruption to our own day, it forms the most continuous history of the progress of human reason; it exhibits to us the finest picture of the mind struggling against its own prejudices and errors, and finally surmounting the physical and moral barrier which appeared to have set a limit to its efforts; and it displays to us in the most instructive form the labours and the triumphs of men who, by the universal suffrage of ages, have been regarded as the ornaments of their species, and as the lights of the civilised world. In order to introduce the reader to the interesting subject of the present Article, it is necessary to take a rapid survey of the different periods of astronomical discovery. |