168 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



star was expected aided this, and the changes from it in the actual 

 state of the heavens subsequently were noted at the observatory at 

 Berlin. One night's experiment was sufficient. The new planet 

 was discovered by M. Galle. 



The claims of Leverrier to the first discovery of the new planet have 

 been contested by Mr. Adams ; the observations of both gentlemen 

 were, however, independent of each other. German science has ar- 

 bitrated the question, and from it indeed, the planet has received the 

 name of Neptune. 



The discovery of Neptune was but the signal for an entire series of 

 planets to troop forth into visibility. The addition of seven new and 

 distinct stars to that group of minor bodies which revolve between 

 Mars and Jupiter, has gone very far — in conjunction with their pecu- 

 liar planes and motions — to strengthen the conjecture made many 

 years ago, that at some remote age of the past a great planet had oc- 

 cupied the mingled orbits of these planetoids, and had since, by some 

 mighty convulsion, been rent into fragments. Whether these nume- 

 rous and remarkable bodies are the shreds and vestiges of a shattered 

 world, science can do no more than speculate ; but the integrity of 

 Bode's Law of Distances, which such an assumption suggests, induces 

 us to greet the idea with welcome, if we cannot prove its truth. 



Not the least interesting among the many discoveries of the tele- 

 scope, and one which looms up amid the announcements of new plane- 

 toids is that efi'ected by Mr. Lassels of Liverpool, with a telescope 

 fashioned by his own hands, of a ring and a satellite to the planet 

 Neptune. 



The bare mention of the telescope recals the many arduous labours 

 in which its assistance has been sought, and the many new and beau- 

 tiful truths which have been called up, even from night itself, to adorn 

 a new age and a new people. The researches of Sir John Herschel have 

 achieved, for the last half century, a lustre and magnificence which 

 will not be dimmed by any conquests of coming years ; and in time to 

 come, the historian, the poet, and the jiainter shall combine to do him 

 honour, and to express their reverence for those labours of love, 

 which, conducted on a soil thousands of miles from his home and his 

 friends in the sultry atmosphere of a southern clime, have added an 

 imperishable lustre to his name. But the telescope itself has claims, 

 and those of no mean magnitude, to an acknowledgment here. A du- 

 rable lesson of the superiority of the nobility of thought over the 



