164 SCENERY OF THE HEAVENS. 



eye of a spectator at 61 Cygni, would hide from his view the whole orbit of the earth ; 

 and a single hair would conceal the entire solar universe ! The remark of Huygens is a 

 sober speculation, that there may be worlds in the immensity of space, which have been 

 long created, whose light, owing to their distance, has not yet reached our globe, though 

 still destined to come within range of the eye. 



" How distant some of the nocturnal suns ! 

 So distant, says the sage, 'twere not absurd 

 To doubt, if beams, set out at Nature's birth, 

 Are yet arriv'd at this so foreign world ; 

 Though nothing half so rapid as their flight." 



However marvellous the statement, it is strictly true, that when we gaze upon the 

 heavens, observe the stars, and note down their positions, we are witnessing and chro 

 nicling their appearances in by-gone time, and not the present aspect of the phenomena. 

 The ray that meets the eye from the nearest sidereal object brings intelligence of its 

 past estate ; and that Past includes years in relation to the front ranks of the stellar 

 army, and ages with respect to the general body. When we reflect upon these facts, and 

 remember that the faint nebulous clusters are far more remote from the distinct stars than 

 they from us that the light which manifests their presence now may have left its 

 source when the Tudor, Norman, or Saxon race occupied the throne we catch a glimpse 

 of the immensity of space, and of the infinity of that Being who originated the great 

 government of which it is the scene, and conducts it with such nicety that a sparrow 

 falleth not to the ground without Him. 



We have nothing to guide us respecting the magnitude of the stars beyond their 

 visibility, when so vastly remote. The planet Saturn is magnified by the telescope larger 

 than the moon to the naked eye, though 900 millions of miles distant ; but instrumental 

 power fails in giving any appreciable magnitude to the stars. It brings countless 

 multitudes into view hid from the unassisted sight ; it makes us sensible of their 

 presence ; it increases their brilliancy : but beyond this, it supplies us with no informa 

 tion respecting their volume and mass. Halley remarked, that " the diameters of Spica 

 Virginis and Aldebaran are so small, that when they happen to immerge behind the dark 

 edge of the moon, they are so far from losing their light gradually, as they must do if 

 they were of any sensible magnitude, that they vanish at once with all their lustre, and 

 emerge likewise in a moment, not small at first, but at once appear with their full light, 

 even although the emersion happen when very near the cusp, where, if they were four 

 seconds in diameter, they would be many seconds of time in getting entirely separated 

 from the limb. But the contrary appears to all those who have observed the occultations 

 of those bright stars." The largest and most brilliant of the stars, if occulted at the dark 

 limb of the moon, Sir John Herschel observes, " is, as it were, extinguished in mid-air, 

 without notice or visible cause for its disappearance, which, as it happens instantaneously, 

 and without the slightest previous diminution of its light, is always surprising ; and if the 

 star be a large and bright one, even startling from its suddenness." The simple fact of 

 the visibility of the stars across the mighty expanse which we know to exist between them 

 and ourselves, necessarily gives us high ideas of their dimensions. Calculations have been 

 made, from a comparison of the light of the stars with that of the sun, but the result can 

 only be regarded as a rude approximation. Let us consider the case of Sirius, the brightest 

 in the heavens. The light of Sirius, as determined by Sir John Herschel, is 324 times 

 that of an average star of the sixth magnitude. The ratio of his light to that of the sun 

 has been calculated to be, using round numbers, as 1 to 5,000,000,000, that is, the 

 illumination supplied by the star is that number of times less than the illumination afforded 

 by the sun. But we have seen, that while the sun is ninety-five millions of miles from us, 



