210 BOOK OF NATURE LAID Opi 



without feeling something of that indescribable im- 

 pulse which every good man must feel when casting 

 his eyes to the nocturnal heavens? "Something, 

 like magic," says the pious Hervey, " has struck my 

 mind, on a transient and unthinking survey of the 

 etherial vault, tinged throughout with the purest 

 azure, and decorated with innumerable starry lamps. 

 I have felt, I know not what powerful and aggran- 

 dizing impulse, which seemed to snatch me from the 

 low entanglements of vanity, and prompted an ar- 

 dent desire for sublimer objects." What, then, must 

 be his sensations, who, by means of the " sight invi- 

 gorating tube," and the lights of philosophy, is led 

 to explore the upper regions of this celestial canopy, 

 which the Creator has so distinctly marked with the 

 wonders of his power! 



The first thing that strikes a superficial observer, 

 js the apparent multitude of those heavenly hosts ; 

 but this will be found to be an illusion, and probably 

 is occasioned by their twinkling, and th? confused 

 manner in which, by their distance, they are made 

 to appear ; for, strange as it may sound in the ears 

 of the unlearned, the stars that are visible in our he- 

 misphere to the naked eye, even in the most favoura- 

 ble weather, do not amount, in any one time, to one 

 thousand. But let it not be imagined that, in men- 

 tioning this, we mean to derogate from the glory of 

 th. Almighty, as it is revealed in the heavens, or by 

 any means wish to insinuate that the number of the 

 stars is within the sphere of our finite powers and 

 capacities to calculate. No; as the more we descend 



