^32 LECTUHE XLIV. 



jecture and imagination ; and thus, from natural philosophy, our imaginations 

 wander into the regions of poetry ; and it must be confessed that the union of 

 poetical embellishment with natural philosophy is seldom very happy. A 

 poet has few facts to communicate, and these he wishes to expand and diver- 

 sify ; he dwells on a favourite idea, and repeats it in a thousand emblemati- 

 cal forms ; his object is, to say a little, very elegantly, in very circuitous, and 

 somewhat obscure terms. But the information, which the natural philoso- 

 pher has to impart, is too copious to allow of prolixity in its detail ; his sub- 

 jects are too intricate to be compatible with digressions after amusement, 

 which, besides interrupting, are too likely to enervate the mind ; and if he is 

 ever fortunate enough to entertain, it must be by gratifying the love of truth, 

 and satisfying the thirst after knowledge. We have, however, a favourable 

 specimen of highly ornamented philosophy in Fontenelle's Plurality of 

 Worlds; a work which must be allowed to convey much information in 

 a very interesting form, although somewhat tinctured with a certain frivolity 

 which is not always agreeable. We need not attempt to accompany all the 

 flights of Fontenelle's imagination ; it will be sufficient for our purpose to 

 pursue his ideas in a simple enumeration of the most remarkable phenomena, 

 that would occur to a spectator placed on each of the planets. 



Of Mercury we know little except the length of his year, which is shorter 

 than three of our months. Supposing all our heat to come from the sun, it 

 is probable that the mean heat on Mercury is above that of boiling quick- 

 silver; and it is scarcely possible that there should be any point about his 

 poles where water would not boil. The sun's diameter would appear, if 

 viewed from Mercury, more than twice as great as to us on the earth. 



Venus must have a climate far more temperate than Mercury, yet much 

 too torrid for the existence of animals or vegetables, except in some circum- 

 polar parts; her magnitude and diurnal rotation differ but little from those 

 of the earth, and her year is only one third shorter ; so that her seasons, and 

 her day and night, must greatly resemble oui-s. The earth, when in oppo- 

 sition to the sun, must be about four times as bright as Venus ever appears to 

 us, and must, therefore, always cast a shadow; it must be frequently, and 

 perhaps generally, visible in tlie day ; and together with the moon, must eK» 



