ANOTHER HETERODOX QUESTION. 293 



change his size ? Does he ever shrink in his majestic propor- 

 tions? Is the magnitude of his broad golden disc ever lessened? 



Assuredly this new question, which was not less audacious 

 than its predecessor, did not come there is sacrilege in the 

 thought from the conservative areopagus of all ancient 

 doctrines ; the learned areopagus, or supreme tribunal, which 

 had erected into a dogma the circular orbit and uniform move- 

 ment of the sun around the earth, the centre of the universe ! 

 It could only have been suggested by some unworthy hetero- 

 doxical disturber of men's minds, his name, alas ! has not 

 been handed down to us, who had dared to look upon the 

 heavens, and learn from their bright and beautiful face, with- 

 out a master, the A B C of science. This " pestilent heretic " 

 had, probably, remarked one of the commonest phenomena 

 connected with the celestial bodies, which astronomers hitherto 

 had not deigned to notice. 



Undoubtedly, dear reader, you will have been more than 

 once impressed by the appearance of the solar orb, when 

 obscured in one of those mists so frequent towards the end of 

 autumn : 



" Cold grew the foggy morn, the day was brief ; 

 Loose on the cherry hung the crimson leaf ; 

 The dew dwelt ever on the herb ; the woods 

 Roared with strong blasts, with mighty showers the floods." 



Such a day, in this sad season of the year, when the glory 

 of the woods is rapidly departing, and from the swollen streams 

 and dewy pastures the vapours ascend in a dense whirl oi 



