TELESCOPES AND MICROSCOPES. 15 



supporting at the top their several ornaments ; and the 

 narrow spaces between were enlarged into walks, par- 

 terres, and terraces. On the polished bottom of these, 

 brighter than Parian marble, walked alone, or in larger 

 companies, the winged inhabitants; these, from little 

 dusky flies, (for such only the naked eye would have 

 shown them,) were raised to glorious glittering animals, 

 stained with lively purple, and with a glossy gold that 

 would have made all the labours of the loom contempti- 

 ble in comparison. I could at leisure, as they walked 

 together, admire their elegant limbs, their velvet 

 shoulders, and their silken wings; their backs vying 

 with the empyrean in its blue ; and their eyes, each 

 formed of a thousand others, out-glittering the little 

 planes on a brilliant above description, and too great 

 almost for admiration." How rich a treat for the lovers 

 of nature ! How little was it in the contemplation of 

 Jansen's boys ! 



Compare for a moment the power of the telescope 

 and of the microscope. The one enables us to refer a 

 system to every star ; the other leads us " to see a world 

 in every atom. The one taught that this mighty globe, 

 with the whole burden of its people, and of its countries, 

 is but as a grain of sand on the surface of immensity ; 

 the other teaches that every grain of sand may harbour 

 within it the tribes and the families of a busy popula- 

 tion. The one indicates the insignificance of the world 

 I tread upon ; the other redeems it from all its insig- 

 nificance; for it tells me that in the leaves of every 

 forest, and in the flowers of every garden, and in the 

 waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with 

 life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament. 

 The one has suggested that beyond and above all that is 



