ASTRONOMERS AND ASTRONOMY. 



many of the cases he has given us 

 his processes, in others only his re- 

 sults. But who has presented in 

 his beautiful geometry, or deduced 

 from his simple principles, any of 

 the inequalities which he left un- 

 touched? The ponderous instru- 

 ment of synthesis, so effective in his 

 hand, has never since been grasped 

 by one who could use it for such 

 purposes ; and we gaze at it with 

 admiring curiosity, as on some gi- 

 gantic implement of war, which 

 stands idle among the memorials of 

 ancient days, and makes us wonder 

 what manner of man he was who 

 could wield as a weapon what we 

 can hardly lift as a burden." 



SIR ISAAC NE\VTON'S EXPERIMENTS. 

 When Sir Isaac Newton changed 

 his residence, and went to live in 

 Leicester Place, his next-door neigh- 

 bour was a widow lady, who was 

 much puzzled by the little she had 

 observed of the philosopher. One 

 of the Fellows of the Eoyal Society 

 of London called upon her one day, 

 when, among other domestic news, 

 she mentioned that some one had 

 come to reside in the adjoining 

 house, who she felt certain was a 

 poor crazy gentleman, "because," 

 she continued, "he diverts himself 

 in the oddest ways imaginable. 

 Every morning, when the sun shines 

 so brightly that we are obliged to 

 draw the window-blinds, he takes 

 his seat in front of a tub of soap- 

 suds, and occupies himself for hours 

 blowing soap-bubbles through a 

 common clay pipe, and intently 

 , watches them till they burst. He 

 is doubtless now at his favourite 

 amusement," she added ; "do come 

 and look at him." The gentleman 

 smiled, and then went up stairs, 

 when, after looking through the 

 window into the adjoining yard, he 

 turned round and said, "My dear 

 madam, the person whom you sup- 

 pose to be a poor lunatic is no other 

 than the great Sir Isaac Newton, 



studying the refraction of light up- 

 on thin plates, a phenomenon which 

 is beautifully exhibited upon the 

 surface of a common soap-bubble." 

 This anecdote serves as an excellent 

 moral not to ridicule what we do 

 not understand, but gently and in- 

 dustriously to gather wisdom from 

 every cii'cumstance around us. 



JOHN KEPLER HIS ENTHUSIASM. 



When John Kepler discovered, 

 after seventeen years of incessant 

 investigation, the third of his laws, 

 namely, that relating to the con- 

 nection between the periodic times 

 and. the distances of the planets, his 

 delight knew no bounds. " Nothing 

 holds me," says he ; "I will indulge 

 in my sacred fury ; I will triumph 

 over mankind by the honest con- 

 fession, that I have stolen the golden 

 vases of the Egyptians, to build 

 up a tabernacle for my God, far 

 away from the confines of Egypt. 

 If you forgive me, I rejoice ; if you 

 are angry, I can bear it. The die 

 is cast ; the book is written, to be 

 read either now or by posterity, 

 I care not which. It may well 

 wait a century for a reader, as God 

 has waited six thousand years for 

 an observer." 



LALANDE. 



Lalande, the French astronomer, 

 when the Revolution broke out, 

 only paid the more attention to the 

 revolutions of the heavenly bodies ; 

 and when he found, at the end, 

 that he had escaped the fury of 

 Robespierre and his fellow-ruffians, 

 he gratefully remarked, "I may 

 thank my stars for it." 



GALILEO'S BLINDNESS. 

 The last telescopic observations 

 of Galileo resulted in the discovery 

 of the diurnal libration of the moon. 

 Although his right eye had for some 

 years lost its power (says Sir David 

 Brewster), yet h^ general vision 

 was sufficiently periect to enable 



