1823.] 
had previously played on its surface, 
and then shutting it under a more to- 
tal eclipse: 
While nature’ is in her wane 
throughout ‘the countries on this side 
the tropic of Cancer, the southern 
parts‘of our globe ‘are again resuming 
their verdure, teeming with that ani- 
mation which remained for a time sus- 
pended, and gradually we Aided 
toa state'of maturity. 
‘How wisely and how raiuniificently 
is the obliquity of the ecliptic, or, in 
other “words, the inclination of the 
axes of the poles to the plane of the 
earth’s orbit, ordamed and appointed 
by ‘an’ omniscient’ and all-providing 
Being: And doubtless’ the other pla- 
nets of our system have an equal pro- 
vision inthe economy of their struc- 
ture and appointment, for varying and 
diffusing the influences of the sun on 
their'superficies.. Venus and Saturn, 
from observations, -have not only been 
found to have a rotatory motion on 
their own axis, but also that the axes 
of their poles-were, like our earth, in- 
clined to the axis of their orbit; and 
the Moon ‘is also somewhat inclined, 
although, as it appears to us, not suf- 
ficiently so to have much effect on her 
seasons: 
hus’ to’ the myriads who inhabit 
these orbs, (as facts sufficiently strong 
have ‘been ascertained for building a 
more than well-founded’ presumption, 
that these' realms, appointed and regu- 
lated by the same laws, and characte- 
rized‘by appearances so nearly ap- 
proximating those of our own planct, 
are destined to precisely the same 
purposes,) an alternation and more 
general diffusion of the solar rays is 
also experienced. On this alternation 
itis evidentdepends the culture of one- 
half of the regions which cover their 
surface. The beings which receive 
life and vigour, and enjoy the blessings 
which attend this alternation of light 
and heat, are thus the perpetual reci- 
pients of heaven’s most benign bles- 
sings of a physical kind ; and, in the 
case of Jugiter, whose axes are most 
inclined, the process of vegetable pro- 
duetion is carried forwards ina degree 
exceeding ours, although doubtless 
shorn of its streneth in the immediate 
neighbourhood of the poles. 
Phis*could) not’ by any possibility 
have happened, either with them or 
our carth, were the axes of their poles 
perpendicular to ‘the .axecs of their 
orbit. ‘ihe sun would be vertical in 
An Evening’s Walk near Bath in Autumn. 
221 
places of the same longitude and Jati- 
tude throughout tle year; one unvary- 
ing line would always mark his course 
in the heay ens, and every spot on our 
globe of the most trifling latitude ex- 
perience its rays obliquely. The 
lands under one perpetual equator 
would be scorched with unintermittent 
and intolerable heat, and the soils of a 
no very high latitude be bound in per- 
petual ice, 
It may possibly be urged by some 
philosophic investigator, that nature 
always accommodates the exigency 
and feelings of her sons to the circam- 
stances of their situation: bat, if this 
be admitted, it is certain, on the other 
hand, that the earth, thus appointed in 
its physical economy, would be incom- 
parably more unfitted for the process 
of production and maturation ; as cer- 
tain spots in its centre, continually 
exposed to perpendicular rays of the 
sun, would be nothing but one wide 
waste of arid sands; while lands far 
below the arctic and antaretic circles 
would at once suffer under the perpe- 
tual privation of its lightand heat. As 
it is now ordained, many of these ex- 
cessive inconveniences are consider- 
ably lessened, if not wholly removed. 
The centre of the earth is not scorched 
to that degree as to render it unfit for 
animal or vegetable life; and one-third 
of the temperate, including the torrid 
and frigid zones, is not enveloped: in 
total darkness and perpetual win- 
ter. Climates are not only graduated 
in every degree’ of Jatitude, but plea- 
singly relieved ; the prodigious fertility 
engendered between tbe tropics is 
modified by the recurrence of partial 
winter ; the temperate zones, although 
for a great part of the year desolated 
by frosts and wintry storms, have’ yet 
their salubrious gales and their genial 
varietics of atmosphere and produc- 
tion,—while soils that lie between the 
sixtieth and cightieth degrees of lati- 
tude have their partial sunshine, and 
their vicissitude of season. 
Dreary, however, and uncomfort- 
able, we are apt to imagine, must be 
the condition of those who inhabit 
‘these higher Jatitudes, almost perpe- 
tually exposed to every physical pri- 
vation. But here, wisely ordained by 
heaven, we find fjhat man, possessing 
sympathies and propensities which 
generate local attachments, and in- 
deed form a high place in the code of 
social virtue, is generally found to give 
a fond, and even an enthusiastic, pre- 
.  fexence 
