COMETS. 1 15 



1682. Its first recorded appearance was thus immediately prior to the Danish invasion 

 of England, and during the declining days of the empire of the caliphs. Hali-ben-Rodoan 

 mentions the immense curved tail in the form of a scythe. The head appeared four times 

 as large as Venus. The second visit, which must have been about 1082, in the reign of 

 the Conqueror, is unrecorded : and the third and fourth, in 1155 and 1230, are merely 

 mentioned by the annalists, without any detail. Its fifth return was in the year 1305, 

 when the papal chair was removed to Avignon, the Swiss cantons were effecting their 

 independence, and Edward I. tyrannising over Scotland. At the season of Easter, this 

 " great and fearful star," as it was called, was perceived, but so far from raising the 

 temperature, a supposed cometary effect in later times, a general cold prevailed over 

 Europe, and a severe frost in England at Midsummer destroyed the corn and fruits. 

 History gives no particulars of its next visit in 1380, but in 1456 its appearance filled 

 all Christendom with consternation. It passed very near to the earth, and swept the 

 heavens with a tail extending over sixty degrees, in the form of a sword or sabre. The 

 Turks had just become masters of Constantinople, and threatened an advance into the 

 heart of Europe. The comet variously excited hope or fear, according as it was deemed 



the friend of the crescent or the 

 cross. At Constantinople, the 

 occurrence of a coincident lunar 

 eclipse increased the portent- 

 ^ ousness of the event. Phranza, 

 ^ grand-chamberlain and principal 

 secretary to the last head of the 

 Greek Roman empire, reports : 

 -^^ "Each night, soon after sun- 

 j set, a comet was seen like a 

 | straight sabre, approaching the 

 L moon. The night of the full 



^^^fl | moon having arrived, and then 



| by chance an eclipse having 

 | taken place, according to the re- 

 Hi gular process and circular orbits 

 of the celestial lights, as is cus 

 tomary some persons seeing the darkness of the eclipse, and regarding the comet in form 

 of a long sword which arose from the west, and travelled towards the east, approaching the 

 moon, thought that the comet in shape of a long sword thus designated, with regard to 

 the darkness of the moon, that the Christians, inhabitants of the "West, had agreed to march 

 against the Turks, and would gain the victory ; but the Turks, also considering these 

 things, became not a little fearful, and had great discussions." The pope, however, 

 Calixtus III., regarded the comet as in league with the Moslems, and ordered the Ave 

 Maria to be repeated by the faithful three times a day instead of two. He directed the 

 church bells to toll at noon, a custom which still prevails in Catholic countries. To the 

 Ave Maria the prayer was added, "Lord save us from the Devil, the Turk, and the 

 Comet ; " and once each day these three obnoxious personages were regularly excom 

 municated. There was perhaps as much worldly policy as superstition in sounding this 

 note of alarm, for fees accumulated to the priesthood from the increase of confessions. 

 The comet at length, after patiently enduring some months of daily excommunication and 

 cursing, showed signs of retreat, and Europe breathed freely when it vanished from the 

 skies. ^ At the eighth return in 1531, the New World had been discovered, and by the 

 invention of printing the foundation had been laid for the intellectual and religious 



