188 BOOK OP NATURE LAID OPEN. 



nate succession of day and night; but to man they 

 speak also a moral lesson. 



" Behold, fond man ! 



See here thy pictur'd life ; pass some few years 



Thy flow'ring Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength^ 



Thy sober Autumn fading into age, 



And pale concluding Winter comes at last, 



And shuts the scene. Ah ! whither now are fled 



Those dreams of greatness 1 



Virtue sole survives, 



Immortal, never-failing friend of man." 



4 * Each night we die, each day are born anew." 



CHAP. XVII. 



THE MOON. 



(t As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,, 

 O'er heaven's clear azure sheds her sacred light, 

 Then shine the vales ; the rocks in prospect rise ; 

 A flood of glory bursts from all the skies.'* 



FROM the earth and the atmosphere we will now 

 ascend in onr speculations, and, in our way to re- 

 gions more remote, turn aside a little and consider 

 the Moon. 



The first thing that strikes our attention in view- 

 ing this resplendent luminary, is the opacity of hey 

 substance, and diversity of her shades. The Moon 

 is not, of herself, a luminary, but shines by the bor- 



