118 Dr. Goring on the new MicroscbpeSi ^c. 



the moon through a few lunations, with an edipse perhaps, 

 the planets in succession with their occultations, and the 

 eclipses of their satellites, tlie double stars, the milky way, and 

 the nebulae and clusters which are within their reach, together 

 with such terrestrial objects as surround the dwellings of their 

 possessors *, they are usually quietly interred in their cases, 

 or craned up into a garret, there to enjoy their otium cum dig^ 

 nitate. Or it may be they will be mounted occasionally, just to 

 show people what a prodigiously scientific personage their 

 possessor must necessarily be. The fact is, that the objects 

 which a telescope shows us as a mere optical instrument are 

 numbered, and far more easily exhausted than microscopic ones. 

 If to the telescope belongs the great and sublime spectacles 

 of nature, to the microscope belong the petites and the beau- 

 tiful ones ; the former showing the world above us, the latter 

 the world beneath us. Had my fortune, health, and capacity 

 permitted me to become an astronomer, I should certainly 

 never have descended to microscopical pursuits, but pro- 

 cured a large Herschelian telescope of some twenty inches 

 aperture, and with it have swept and ransacked the southern 

 hemisphere for nebulae and clusters of stars, as the immortal 

 SirAV. Herschel has done our northern one. But the fates 

 have not permitted this ; so as I have not been able to get 

 a mackerel I have been forced to content myself with a sprat — 

 (to use the homely but expressive adage.) 



There is an argument which it seems to me may be used 

 with force and effect, to justify or palliate an indulgence in 

 microscopical researches: it is simply this. Nature has been 

 pleased to bestow a most exquisite degree of finishing upon 

 some of her works, such as can only be perceived and appre- 

 ciated by man when assisted by the microscope. Now is it not 

 monstrous and insupportable that men, confessedly only the 

 works of nature, (and perhaps by her considered as little better 



* Or if in town, perhaps, to exhibit the billings and cooings of the he and 

 she gentry from the country, on the gallery which surrounds the dome of St. Paul's, 

 or the Monument — (it is possible to find out low and degrading occupations even for 

 the telescope.) I have heard of an American gentleman who was called out from 

 a ball-room, for making use therein of an inverting opera-glass, to turn the ladies 

 iopsy turvy. - 



