The Sun.
London, England, 1839-04-09 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

VIE ITS OF THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE
HEAVENS, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS
TO A LADY. Br J. P. NiczoL, L.L.D.,
F.R.S.E., 4-c.

Tait, Edinburgh.
This is an eloquent book, though the woulds and
shoulds, wills and shells are terribly misplaced. To
those however who can conquer the little repugnance
which such venial errors cause, and have a taste for
the subject, the book will be very delightful. The prin-
cipal object of the author is to state what
recent times have evolved concerning the vastness
of the universe, in language so plain that whoever wills
may henceforth look at the heavens, not without some-
thing of the emotion which their greatness communi-
cates to the accomplished astronomer. The author, ex-
cept when he gives "speculation free wing," generally
confines himself to explaining the discoveries and doc-
trines of the two Herschel's, which, from peculiar
and somewhat suspicious circumstances, seem never to
have been popularized, and certainly the knowledge
of which has never been extensively circulated
amongst the people. Now and then a glimpse
of them has been opened up by some lecturer,
but in general the magnificent discoveries of
these two men of genius, have remained entombed
in the archives of the Royal Society, and no more
form a part of tha popular knowledge of the day,
though they constitute some of the most brilliant dis-
coveries ever made, than the theories of Hobbes or the
vortices of Descartes, " The elder Herschel was struck
for a discoverer," says Mr. Nichol, " in the finest mould."
The telescope in his hands assumed a capability of
sounding the uttermost profundities.
" One of the first truths which Mr. Nichol places
before us as discovered by Herschel, is that, divided
from our firmament by measureless intervals, numerous
firmaments, glorious as our's, float through immensity,
doubtless forming one stupendous system, bound to-
gether by fine relationships. These remarkable masses
are located so deep in space that to inferior telescopes
they seem like faint streaks or spots of milky
light on the blue of the sky ; but the instruments which had
just been summoned into being, dissolve their mystery, and
disclose their myriads of stars. One of these objects,
perhaps the most brilliant in the heavens, is in the con-
stellation Hercules. After all, bow easy the belief to its
indwellers that a mass thus surpassingly gorgeous is infi-
nite. What wonder although the inhabitants of a planet
revolving round one of its central suns should have mis-
taken his own magnificent heavens for the universe, and
needed the distant and dim vision of our firmament ap-
pearing to his telescope as a starry spec to remove the
veil from his mind, and give him juster notions of the ma-
jesty of creation."
That opens to us a novelty—that there are other
heavens, and other firmaments than those we see.
Nor is it for us less strange to be told, contrary to
what our senses tell us, as the hasty judgments of
former times gave rise to the terms rising and setting of
sun, that our globe is not in the centre of a hollow
sphere, as the heavens appear, but in a portion of a
starry firmament which has an oblong shape, and breaks
into two branches. After mentioning some of the
proofs of this statement, and illustrating it by figures,
which we cannot copy, Mr. Nichol says—
" The opinion is thus forced on us anew that we are in the
midst of a mere group or cluster of stars, and moreover, that
it is a group of peculiar configuration, narrow, but greatly
elongated in the line of the milky way. Is it not strange
that an inference so natural, so palpable, flowing so easily
from the phenomena of our brilliant zone, was never drawn
before, and that, notwithstanding of that zone shining and
speaking since creation's dawn, moat invitingly to reason,
it should have been left for Ilerschell, even to so late a day,
to rescue it from mythology and mystery, and teach us to
luek at its countless orbs with emotions loftier than an ex-
citing but useless wonder ? But so always has arisen truth ;
late, late."
We shall quote another passage to show that these
discoveries of Herschel], gorgeous though they be,
arc only beginning to unfold the mysteries ofthe.heavens

to man :
" With all this, however, even in the northern hemis-
phere, we are only entering the field, for in the profound
vault there are probably myriads. To discover Struve's
3,000, not more than 120,000 stars were examined, and
what are to these the entire contents of the skies ? Sir
William Herschel! computed that in the Milky Way
116,000, or more than nine-tenths of this whole number,
have passed under his review during a quarter of an hour's
observation ; so that in undiscovered systems the heavens
are still marvellously rich, and mechanisms, more singular,
perhaps, than any yet known, may lurk within these masses,
now only revealed by their obscure and aggregate light.
The ground is thus cleared only over a trifling territory.
The measurement of the base is but begun, and observers
are solicited to the labour, and implored toshrink from neither
watchings nor toil. The enduring glory of Tycho, whose
name is as a star, whispers a sweet promise of immortality
to him, who will here be a victor over the unknown, if
indeed, external reward is needed, or aught else than the
pleasure of unwinding the harmonious arrangements of the
universe and the first vision of their magnificence. In
search of magnificence, it is true we need not wander far ;
witness the fields which encircle your home, the blade of the
modest grass which adorns them, but the heavens are
fresh,—familiarity has not left its foot-print on their un-
trodden floor. In the silence of warm midnight that noble
curtain stretched out above me, and the idea present
and impressive of its orbs, obediently pursuing their stu-
pendous paths, I confess there is a italstrinity which some-
times falls upon the Arit, not unlikt the feeling of the
Patriarch, when he h rd that ICkw rushing wind, believing
it to be the audible f steps of his Crevor."
We shall quote ou3 more passage descriptive of the
ligh t of the stars :
" To one additional circumstance alone will I allude in
conclusion, partly because of its inherent interest, and
partly because it unquestionably points to some important,
although still undefined fact, relative to the physical consti-
tution of the celestial bodies. The light of the stars is by
no means uniform ; the ray of Sirius, for instance, differs,
not merely in intensity, but in kind, from the ray of Vega ;
and in countries where the atmosphere is less humid and
hazy than ours the difference is striking to the naked eye,
one star shining as an emerald, another as a ruby, and the
whole heavens sparkling as with various gems. This at-
tribute of variety of colour also characterises the double
stars, but the remarkable thing is that in many instances
where one star is of one marked colour its companion is of
the opposite.
" Instances abound in which a red and a green star are
associated, or a yellow and blue. When the stars are of
different degrees of brilliancy, this contrast may originate
in an optical delusion—in that tendency which disposes the
eye, when gazing on any bright colour, to endow fainter
objects near it with the opposite, or complimentary colour,
by way of relief; but the explanation is not universally
borne out, inasmuch as many couples, in precisely similar
circumstances, show no such contrasts. Sir John Hers-
chell was at first decidedly inclined to attribute the phe-
nomenon to an actual difference of colour, and although
he has since, perhaps on good grounds, half relinquished
that conclusion, we have the acquiescing testimony of
Struve, founded on observations with the Dorfiat tele-
scope, whose clearness has never yet been rivalled, so that
we may not absolutely part with the early, pleasing specu-
lations of the British astronomer.
" It may easier be suggested in words, (says Sir John)
than conceived in imagination, what variety of illumination,
two stars—a red and a green, or a yellow and a blue one,
must afford a planet, circulating around either; and what
cheering contrasts, and grateful vicissitudes, a red and a
green day for instance, alternating with a white one, and
with darkness, might arise from the presence or absence, or
both, from the horizon." _

We dare not quote any more, or we would
lay before our readers the curious facts which led the
illustrious astronomers, whose discoveries Mr. Nichol
brings forward, to infer that out of the Nebula which
they detected, and out of what they called star-dust, a
continual creation of stars is now in progress. We are
obliged to stop, but we recommend the book as well
calculated to interest the mind, and give it new
and wonaerful ideas of the Great Creator. For us,
we will own it is something new to learn that
our globe, our sun, and all its planets and
comets, that the whole, to us, spherical and visible
heavens is but one of many firmaments, all of which
are equally eared for by the Great Being who presides
over all, and all of which, so far as the adaptation of
light coming from the furthest corner of space to the
eye and the prevalence of gravity are concerned, are
regulated by one common and universal system of law.
The endlessness of these phenomena, the continual
revelation which is going on of them to man, if not the
continual creation of them, seems, we arc bouad to ob-
serve, quite as much opposed to certain theories of cos-
mogony, which have long been supposed to be of indis-
putable authority, as the modern discoveries of the
geologist. Has this circumstance, let us ask,
had any influence in preventing the ennobling discoveries
of Herschell from being popularized for the people?
Can it be that the power of priestcraft has been suffered
in the nineteenth century to suppress a general know-
ledge of facts more stupendous, more divine than any
others, more suitable to impress on man a sense of his
own nothingness, and to elevate him to great dignity of
thought, by being permitted to learn and to contemplate
such wonders—can it be that any set of men, to
serve their own purposes, have prevented the vast
discoveries of Herschell from being popularized
for the information of the people? We ask why have
not those whose business it is to instruct the people,
and who are largely paid for it, made them acquainted
with the wonders of Creation as developed by the Her-
schells ? It would indeed be a strange proof of the
manner in which one class of men seek to coin the
hearts and minds of other men into rroney, if it should
turn out that the telescope discoveries of Herschell in
the heavens, like the Wernerian and Huttonian dis-
coveries in the bowels of the earth, have been kept in
the back ground, in order to preserve, for the selfish
purposes of a class, the authority of an ancient theory.

HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE
STATESMEN OF THE TIMES OF
GEORGE THE THIRD.
C. Knight, London, 1839.
The majority of these sketches have already appeared
in print ; some in the Edinburylz Review, where they
attracted very general attention, and others in the vo-
lumes published last year, containing Lord Brougham's
(the author) speeches. At the time of their appear-
ance we noticed them at considerable length in The
Sun ; we need say litt!R more, therefore, on the present
occasion, than that we are heartily glad to see them re-
prieted in the form in which they are now presented to
•

the public—namely, that of a handsome octavo
volume, embellished with several striking portraits of the
statesmen whose character Lord Brougham has drawn
with so much skill, and, generally speaking, with such
laudable impartiality. In the course of a short time,
the work, we trust, will be brought out in a cheaper
form—say, a five shilling volume—which is the only
thing wanting to ensure its general popularity. Of the
new sketches inserted in the volumes before us, the
two most carefully drawn are those of Lords North and
Mansfield ; while that which appears to have been
penned in the most con amore spirit, as if with a hearty
relish for the task of delineation, is the sketch of the
celebrated republican, Franklin, of whom Lord
Brougham observes with justice, that " the circum-
stances under which others succumb, he made to yield,
and bent to his own purposes—a successful
leader of a revolt that ended in complete triumph,
after appearing desperate for years ; a great discoverer
in philosophy, without the ordinary helps to knowledge ;
a writer famed for his chaste style without a classical
education ; a skilful negotiator, though never bred to
politics ; and ending as a favourite, nay a pattern of
fashion, when the guest of frivolous Courts, the life
which he had began in garrets and in workshops. Com-
binations of faculties in others deemed impossible, ap-
peared easy and natural in Franklin. The philosopher
delighting in speculation, was also eminently a man of
action. Ingenious reasoning, refined and subtle con-
sultation, were in him combined with prompt resolution,
and inflexible firmness of purpose." This is well and
justly said of Franklin, who deserves all the praise that
Lord Brougham has bestowed on him.

D EERBR OOK 3 yds.
Moron, London, 1839.

Deerbrook is a simple, unambitious village tale, which,
in many places, especially in its vivid landscape descrip-
tions, will remind the reader of its authoress's (Miss
Martineau) first work of fiction, the " Illustrations of Po-
litical Economy." Those who are not on the constant
look-out for dramatic effect, and will be content with
dialogue that is natural, without being at all striking or
pointed in its tone ; who moreover prefer truth of deli-
nection in character, to mere melo-dramatic exaggera-
tions—this class of readers, and we fear they form
an alarming minority, will derive infinite pleasure
from the perusal of Deerbrook, and will look eagerly
forward to another similar tale from the same pen.
The present story abounds in dialogue, which, gene-
rally speaking, Miss Martineau has managed with much
address, and puts forth occasionally such earnest and
thoughtful observations, as show a kindly, philosophic
nature. One of the cleverest characters is that of
Mrs. Grey, whose village gossip is as true to the life as
Miss Austin herself could have made it. We have no
space for extracts, or we should have given some of the
Authoress's graphic and vigorous landscape sketches.