He gave the fixed stars are not materially magnified by these instruments, the fact of this enlarged appearance, when once detected, fixed the observer's attention. The telescope with which this discovery was made was one of seven feet in length only, and the eye-piece in use at the moment was one which magnified two hundred and twentyseven times. Having, by subsequent observations, determined that the star in question had changed place, in relation to those by which it was surrounded, Herschel no longer concealed his discovery. Still he had no suspicion he had discovered a planet : he wrote to the Royal Society, of which he was a member, stating the facts, and adding that his first impression was he had detected a small comet, without either tail or envelope ; and in a subsequent part of his announce a ment he adds : 'the sequel has shown that my surmises were well founded, this proving to be the comet we have lately observed.' This announcement was published in the succeeding volume of the Society's transactions ; but in the mean time Maskelyne, the English astronomer, announced the discovery to M. Messier, and the astronomers of Paris were at once engaged in observing the supposed comet, and in calculating its orbit. Nor were they long in detecting the error that had been committed, in regard to the body in question. On the 8th of May, 1781, less than two months from the first discovery of Uranus as a moving body, Jean-Baptiste Gasper Bochart de Saron ascertained that it was much more elongated from the sun than any of the other planets; and his extraordinary facility, in calculating cometary orbits, had thus early enabled him to know that the motions of this body answered not to a parabolic curve. the first idea of a circular orbit, and this suggestion was carried out, and the orbit determined, by his co-laborer, Méchain, according to the method of La Place. Thus, through the combined agency of a most happy piece of unexpected good fortune, on the part of Herschel, in England, and the industry and mathematical skill of the Paris astronomers, a new planet stood revealed to the knowledge of mankind, belonging to our own solar family, and yet revolving in an orbit so immensely distant as to envelope all the others, and to give to the known limits of the solar system an augmentation of dimensions almost beyond conception. It has often been averred — and it is necessary here to repeat the truth, because the errors in question are still found in the newest books — that Dr. Herschel discovered motion in Uranus through the agency of his noted forty feet telescope; and also that he recognised that body as a planet. For the promulgation of the former of these errors, we may refer, among others equally respectable, to a no less authority than Arnott's Elements of Physics; and for the latter, among others, to the North American Review, not to enumerate a multitude of minor publications, many of them school books, and hence in the hands of most of our youth, which have given them currency until they have well nigh passed into proverbs. Advertence to this subject was called for here, as the only means of justifying some of the above statements; and the expose is equally demanded in justice to the memory of Dr. Herschel himself, who certainly, in his publications upon these subjects, has given no authority for these creations of some unknown pen. That research might be stimulated, the French Academy of Sciences proposed the theory of the new planet for the subject of the prize of 1790; and although but eight years bad transpired, since investigations began, Delambre, produced tables of Uranus which took the prize; and which are found so accurate as to be still retained. By these it was disclosed that Uranus revolves in an orbit whose distance from the sun is more than nineteen times as great as that of the earth ; and more than twice as great as that of Saturn the most distant planet known, before this discovery. In this orbit Uranus accomplishes its siderial revolution in a little more than eightyfour years and twenty-nine days — moving like the other planets from west to east. Less than three quarters of a single solar year of that planet, then, has transpired since its first discovery as a member of our solar family! Its apparent diameter is about 4"; yet its real diameter is about thirty-five thousand miles, and its bulk about eighty times that of our earth. Though of such magnitude, yet at the enormous distance at which it is placed, and considering the lentitude of its apparent motion, we can scarcely be surprised that its real character escaped detection so long. The inclination of its orbit to the plane of the ecliptic is less than that of any other planet, being not quite 47'. Dr. Herschel says, “the flattening of the poles of this planet seems to be sufficiently ascertained, by many observa-, tions. The seven feet, the ten feet, and the twenty feet instrument equally confirm it;' and hence this planet, it has been inferred, has a motion upon its axis; which, reasoning from analogy, is certainly probable in the highest degree, although the fact has not yet been verified by observation. When its planetary character was detected, fifty-seven years since, this body was in the constellation Gemini : it is now near 1 of Aquarius, about go almost due north from the star Scheat, of the same constellation. The number of satellites belonging to Uranus is not settled; but those which are well known offer some peculiarities forming exceptions to rules that have been observed by nature in all other parts of the celestial mechanism with which we have become acquainted. It was not until 1787 that Uranus was known to be attended by On the 11th of January, of that year, Herschel believed he discovered two; and subsequent observations left no doubt of this fact. This discovery was made with his twenty feet reflector, after it bad been transformed from the Newtonian form to a front view instrument. Of his great telescope, of forty feet, he says he had his first view in it on the 19th of February, 1787, but that it was not finally completed until the 28th of August, 1789. He afterwards supposed he had discovered four other satellites, and two rings, belonging to this planet ; but he subsequently disproved the existence of these last, retaining only the four additional satellites. These have never been seen by any other astronomer, nor has any proof, additional to the opinion of Herschel, been obtained, that there are such bodies. The suspected rings were evidently optical illusions; and it is highly probable that they arose from the defect of figure of the speculum of the forty feet telescope. Indeed this instrument, which has been so often and so constantly the theme of eulogy and admiration, seems never to have been of very extensive practical use. The figure of the speculum is well known to have been so defective, that the images of the celestial bodies which it produced were distorted, and although very high magnifying powers were tried upon it, yet the Rev. W. Pearson, a member of the Royal Society, does not hesitate to state, in his “ Practical Astronomy,” (4to. London, 1829,) that owing to this defect the magnifying powers used upon it seldom exceeded 200. The belief in its limited usefulness is still farther, and very strongly confirmed, by the fact that this telescope was taken down, some years since, and laid aside, for no other avowed reason except that the frame work had become decayed ! All, then, which is known with certainty respecting the attendants of Uranus, is that it has two satellites; but these present phenomena wholly unknown in any other portion of the celestial mechanism. • Contrary to the unbroken analogy of the whole planetary systemwhether of primaries or secondaries—the planes of their orbits are nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic, being inclined no less than 78° 58' to that plane, and in these orbits their motions are retrograde; that is to say, their positions, when projected on the ecliptic, instead of advancing from west to east, round the centre of their primary, as is the case with every other planet and satellite, move in the opposite direction.' For these peculiarities no satisfactory cause has been assigned ; and they leave us no less strikingly impressed with the peculiarity of the appendages of the most distant planet now, than we were with those of Saturn, when that was supposed to move upon the utmost border of the solar system. But of the limits of that system, whatever may once have been thought, we can now form no settled opinion. The space beyond the orbit of Uranus, within which the attraction of our sun surpasses that of the sun of ану. other system, is shown, by the orbits of some comets, to be almost beyond our conception ; nor have we any evidence that these bodies, in their protracted journeys of a thousand years,' do or do not reach the confines of that space. Certain it is, that space enough is there to allow of a farther augmentation of the number of our primary planets; but whether we shall ever recognise them, if such there are, cannot now be known. The remarkable, yet wholly empirical law of Bode, touching the distances of the planetary orbits from the sun - a law which is also found applicable to the distances of satellites from their primaries if continued beyond Uranus, would give the next planet a distance three hundred and eighty-eight times greater from the sun than the earth, and a siderial revolution of about two hundred and forty-three years. As no fixed proportion between the size and the distances from the sun, is found to prevail among the planets, a body, so far as we know, may hereafter become known to us, even at that prodigious elongation, by reason of great size, aided by improved telescopes, and perhaps, also, by some happy fortuity,.such as that which first fixed attention upon Uranus, and one or more of the telescopic planets. Indeed we cannot aver, with any certainty, that the first observations are not already made and recorded, that are to eventuate in perfecting the discovery of one or more such bodies. Mr. Wartman, of Geneva, observed, in September, 1831, a small star which had an appreciable motion, both in right ascension and in declination; and in May, 1835, Mr. Cacciatore, of Palermo, observed another (for their positions showed them not the same) distinguished for like motions. In the case of the latter body, calculations, based upon the imperfect observations obtained, render it probable that its orbit, if this be a planet, is at near the same distance from the sun as that of Vesta; but of the star observed by Mr. Wartman, no such approximate determination was obtained. Neither of these bodies, we believe, has ever been seen since the year in which it was discovered; and what they are, or where arranged, in the celestial economy, if ever made known to us, is still to be disclosed by the future. Buffalo, June, 1838. R. W. H. By the deep forest's yet unwaken'd green, - Faint-blushing delicate the woods first gem. Where the fresh fountain bubbles into light, The fitful spirit of the wilderness Raiseth the heart, and the adoring eye, The slender service-tree that waves so high, I love all blossoms of the early spring; All living things the winter-storm hath left: Where the sweet water-fall is chiming low, Amidst the shrub-roots, and the old gray stone; There flow to HIM my soul! my joyful soul, Of early buds; and gentle sounds that roll He who hath form'd us for devotion, He Hath worn our nature; and hath lov'd to pray Here let us gather strength, e'er we depart Where the world calls. God keeps the pure in heart. W. THE AMBITIOUS MAN. Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps its self, MACBETH. a a WERE all the crowns, and columns, and arches, in time past awarded to successful ambition, to be multiplied one hundred fold, they would hardly equal the hopes which have been blasted, and hearts broken in the winning of them. Disease has withered, and accident and self-destruction have found their victims, and men have seen the destroying messenger. But all the while ambition has been decoying us, and stimulating our lower energies, and its only records are here and there a wrinkled and care-laden brow, or an inscription on a tombstone. It goes abroad flaunting and dazzling ; its solitary strivings, its heart-burnings, and its down-trampling arts are unobserved within the inner sanctuary. My friend, Charles Egerton, was a lawyer who misused his profession; he degraded it into a means of political preferment. At college he was one of the mildest fellows in the world — winning respect by mental superiority, and retaining it by a thousand natural kindnesses. I used to admire his love for his mother, who was a widow, and had met with such a series of domestic losses, that the balance of her thoughts' already inclined to another world.' In conformity with her wishes, he was at first disposed to the ministry. By degrees, however, he proposed to himself a wider field a place among the names that never die! He might fail, but he must strive to influence the world. During all these changes, bis filial affection never cooled. 'If my parent were not a widow,' he used to say, 'and her love to me her last tie to earth, I would act for myself, and the time should arrive when she might be proud indeed of her Egerton had one more inducement to humble and patient exertion. Months and years of intercourse had attached him to one of the most lovely spirits I have ever known. Anna Carlton - a gentle creature, who had never seen the dazzling flatteries of what is termed fashionable life - was at first pleased with his boyish preference; as youth changed to womanhood, she found her regard rather increased. For a while, she believed her interest in his struggle, and her triumphs in his success, to be no more than friendly; and he said he was no gladder to meet her bright eyes and modest bow, than he should have been that of any Both were mistaken, and both at last perceived their mistake. If their attachment was not formally acknowledged, it was nevertheless warm, and apparently indestructible. Anna was an humble being; unambitious to attract but by her lovely temper; always engaged, and always postponing herself to her friends. She had that thorough self-devotion, that cheerful forgiveness, which mark woman only. In warmer days I used to fancy, that her character was in no single point deficient; I she had failings, but only because she was human. Her mother died wheu she was in her third year, and Anna had been a kind of soothing suppose son ! pretty damsel. |