so Star anfr TOeatber (Bosstp 



sonal, but important word " great " had to be sub- 

 stituted for that of " Drake," it was necessary to 

 furnish the comet with a fresh title. The general 

 public styled it variously Halley's Comet, the Day- 

 light Comet, the New Comet, or the Miner's Comet. 

 Some, indeed, with a fine sense of distinction, as well 

 as with uncommon daring, alluded to it as the " Twilight 

 Comet." And the worst of it was there was no gain- 

 saying their pedantic assertion, for though the comet 

 was a daylight one in South Africa it was a twilight 

 one to us in England. That much I can personally 

 vouch for, as my first view of it was on January 21st, 

 1910, soon after five o'clock in the evening, in a 

 twilight almost as strong as the light of broad day. 



All of these things left Science unmoved ; Science 

 had already determined that the comet should pass 

 into astronomic history bearing the bald and uncon- 

 vincing cognomen of " 1910 a." For my part, I know 

 it only as the Daylight Comet, just as I know Halley's 

 and Donati's, and modest little Encke's, and that 

 Proteus of the cometary world, Morehouse's. If any- 

 one asked me whether Encke's was a or z, or whether 

 Morehouse's was n or m, I could not for the life of me 

 tell him. 



HALLEY'S COMET 



In one of old Thomas Dekker's plays I recently 

 chanced on these opening lines spoken by Gasparo 

 Trebazzi, Duke of Milan : 



Behold ! Yon comet shows his head again. 

 Twice hath he thus at cross-turns thrown on us 

 Prodigious looks ; twice hath he troubled 

 The waters of our eyes. 



