PORTION OF THE COSMOS. NEW STARS. 149 



part of the heavens, as is shewn by the frequently recurring 

 failure in observations of the culmination of particular stars. 



The circumstance that almost all have shone forth at first 

 with great intensity of light as stars of the first magnitude, 

 and even scintillating more brilliantly, and that they are 

 not seen (by the naked eye at least) to increase gradually in 

 brightness, appear to me peculiarities well deserving of 

 regard. Kepler ( 272 ) attended so much to this as a crite- 

 rion, that he confuted the vain pretension of Antonius Lau- 

 rentinus Politianus, who claimed to have seen the star ill 

 Ophiuchus (1604) before it had been seen by Brunowski, by 

 the fact of Laurentinus having said " Apparuit nova stella 

 parva, et postea de die in diem crescendo apparuit lumine 

 flon multo inferior Venere, superior Jove." Only three 

 stars are known (and these may be viewed, therefore, as ex- 

 ceptional instances) which did not shine forth at first as 

 stars of the first magnitude : viz. two of the 3rd magnitude, 

 one in Cygnus in 1600, and one in Vulpes in 1670 ; and 

 Hind's new star of the 5th magnitude in Ophiuchus in 1848. 



It is much to be regretted, as we have already remarked, 

 that in the long interval of 178 years which have elapsed 

 since the invention of the telescope, only 2 new stars have 

 been seen ; whereas these phenomena have been sometimes 

 so comparatively frequent, that at the close of the fourth 

 century 4 took place in 24 years, in the thirteenth century 

 8 in 61 years, and at the end of the sixteenth and beginning 

 of the seventeenth centuries (in the period of Kepler and 

 Tycho Brahe), 6 were observed in 37 years. In all these 

 numerical statements I take into account the Chinese obser- 

 vations of " extraordinary stars," the greater part of which 

 are regarded by our most distinguished astronomers as 



