The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-31 00:00:00

EVENING, MARCH 31, 1847.

LITERATURE.

THOUGHTS ON THE SYSTEM OF THE
WORLD. By J. P. Nichol, LL.D.

Since the science of astronomy was first afforded some
appreciable stability by the revelations of the telescope
of Galileo, no more startling announcements have been
made as to the mechanism of the heavens, than those
contained in this noble and eloquent volume from the
pen of Dr. Nichol. The book has been suggested im-
mediately by the facts revealed through the instrumen-
tality of the monster speculum fabricated by Lord Rosse.
Gratitude to that nobleman for the exercise of his genius
and industry in unfolding some of the mysteries of God's
creation, has incited Dr. Nichol to compare him to the
illustrious Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, and in ad-
dition to that has instigated the production of these very
beautiful, extraordinary, and interesting chapters. It is
but natural that the stellar discoveries which are con-
tained in the present volume should have become by this
time universally known ; they are such discoveries as are
most readily promulgated throughout society, they are
discoveries not one jot less marvellous than those pro-
claimed by the Tuscan, in his " Nuncio Sidereis," when
he beheld the cusps of Mercury, the moons of Jupiter,
or the maculas upon the disc of the solar globe. From
the time which has elapsed, therefore, since the original
appearance of the revelations of the great Rosse tele-
scope, it will be unnecessary for us to do more than simply
mention the nature of those revelations. Our chief
purpose just now is to remark upon the exquisite graces
of the book as a composition, upon the enthusiasm into
which the writer frequently soars in the course of his
sublime narrative, and upon the majestic morality by
which every sentiment and disclosure is characterised.
The broad fact upon which its pages are based is in re-
lation to. the Nebular hypothesis of Sir William Her-
schel, and its utter and eternal dispersion by the
monster speculum at Parsonstown in Ireland. That is
the arch revelation which Dr. Nichol has blown through
this volume as through a golden trumpet. With an
intense reverence for the vast intellectual capacities
of the great Herschel, and with something almost like
remorse at destroying a scheme of so much intrinsic
loveliness, Dr. Nichol here entirely dispels the notion
that the nebula© are suffusions of vapour, in certain loca-
lities of space, being the germs of worlds. From the
magnificent hypothesis of Sir William Herschel, or
rather simultaneously with its conception, grew up the
celebrated theory of La Place as to the birth of the solar
system. With the dissipation of the one dream the
foundations of the other are loosened; with the downfall
of Herschel's hypothesis La Place's theory is left without
any extrinsic support. As the writer of the work before us
intimates, the latter will henceforth have to rest solely
upon its own merits. The difficulties around it are
doubled; its permanency is more questionable than ever;
but tinder these remarkable emabarrassments the glory
of its ultimate demonstration (supposing that ultimate
demonstration to be possible) will be wonderfully in-
creased. So bewildering is the vastness and profundity
of space, as conveyed to the imagination by the resolution
of the nebulae into infinite multitudes of stars, so astonish-
ing is the bare supposition that those blear masses of light
lying in the depths of the sky are literally star dust, so
sublime are the suggestions arising from this rending in
twain of the veil of the celestial temple, that the mind of
man is almost appalled by the accession of grandeur
dawning upon his finite intelligence. Hence it is that
we can appreciate the sentiment which may probably
have originated the crude belief of Herschel in eluci-
dation of three impenetrable problems of the nebular
lights. " What wonder," as Dr. Nichol exclaims
in a burst of beautiful emotion, " what wonder
though even he who had clomb heights so
lofty, and passed unbewildered through many
untracked lands, should yet, in presence of a phenome-
non which portended to summon into view schemes of
being so unknown before, and so surpassingly dazzling,
have felt that his imagination had lost its daring, and
thereupon assumed as a refuge the easier and more pro-
bable hypothesis of a selbshining fluid, whose existence
would veil the variety and temper the glories of this
overpowering universe!" But the inexorable and solemn
voice of science has proclaimed the omega of that ignorant
and credulous vision. The dim haze has become more
and more perceptible under the scrutiny of telescopic
agencies until it has broken up into distinct stars upon
the eye of the telescope of Lord Rosse. The announce-
ment of this grand revelation was made in a letter written
to Dr. Nichol by that enlightened and laborious noble-
roan, dated March 19th, 1846. The nebula examined
was the famous nebula in Orion. "We could
plainly see," says that memorable letter, "that all
about the trapezium is a mass of stars; the rest
rf the nebula also abounding with stars, and
exhibiting the characteristics of resolvability strongly
marked." What fields of creative glory open
upon the fancy at the enunciation of those few but
thrilling words ! What infinitudes of life I What a
pomp of globes shining upon us from the incalculable
distances of the heavens ! " The nebulous spots," says
Dr. Nichol, " resolved into stars is a fact which of itself'
vastly modifies our conception of the magnitude of the
Creation ; bat how hopelessly does imagination strain
to enlarge itself, that so we realise the interior gorgeous-
ness of these distant groups ! In the masses of nebulous
stars, circular or compact galaxies of all orders of glory
may now be traced, leading from the splendid cluster in
Hercules, as their lowest point up through schemes of
being, in which sun is nearer sun, until their entire skies
merge into one blaze of light and one throng of activities;
—not like ours, coldly studded with points far apart,
whose mutual influences are sundered by huge abysses!
But high above all stands Orion, the pre-eminent glory
and wonder of the Sidereal Universe. Considering it as
so remote that its light cannot reach us in less than sixty
thousand years, and at the same time as occupying so
large an apparent portion of the heavens, how stu-
pendous must be the extent of that Nebula! It would
seem almost as if all other clusters hitherto gauged, were
collected and compressed into one, they would not sur-
pass this mighty group, in which every wisp, every
wrinkle, is verily a SAND-HEAP of stars!" It is after this ,
superb delineation of perhaps the grandest spectacle in
the visible creation that Dr. Nichol makes this meek
and beautiful ejaculation—" There are cases in which,
though Imagination has quailed, Reason may still
adventure inquiries, and prolong its speculations; but at
times we are brought to a limit across which no human
faculty has the strength to penetrate, and where as now
—as if on tho threshold of the very Infinite—we can
only bend our heads and silently ADORE!" Not only,
however, does he picture to himself and to the reader the
resolvability of the nebular haze into multitudes of con-
tiguous suns, not only does he insist upon the migration
of the whole of the solar system through space round a
given centre, say the brighter point in the Pleiades, not
only does he enlarge upon the mutations which this very
system must have undergone in the course of its pro-
gressive formation, but he dilates upon the probability of
the grander revolutions of the constellations in the skies,
he marvels as to the lapse of time since the three stars
in the belt of Orion appeared in a different aspect before
they merged into their present symmetry, and muses
upon the modifications of form which ini" the dread past"
must have been perceptible in Perseus and the Milky
Way! After commenting upon the exquisitely sequen-
tial character of creation and the matchless uaiformity
and adaptation throughout, the author rises to a theme
beyond even the majesty of those mighty orbs that
glitter in the night sky. The passage is among the most
masterly and earnest in this masterly and earnest work.
There is a harmony in it that drowns the dissonance of
infidelity.
" That grand display of sequence must surely have life
within it, and a condition different from mere orderly
collocations between one event and another as the sub
stratum of their concurrence, the mind demands a CAUSE.
That cause is not discernible, and therefore not repre-
sentable ; but lam assured, by the strongest intuitions
of my being, that it exists. I must seek it, then, in the
region of the lINREPRESENTABLE—among realities inde-
pendent of time and space. Now, I know no cognate
idea unless that of WILL. Power or force has no anala-
gon in my mind, except a FREE ACT; and, therefore, as
the link of every turn of the infinite successions of the
material universe, I descry even the immanence of its
GREAT Gots! Law is not merely the Almighty's
minister: the order of the world is not merely his ordi-
nance; the forces, if so we name them, which express
order, are not powers or inferior energies he has evoked
from the silences, and to whose guardianship he has in-
trusted all things, that so he himself might repose. No!
above, below, and around there is GOD, there his dread
Omnipresence, speaking to finite creatures through
Finite Forms, a language, which only the Living Heart
esti understand ! In the rain and sunshine, in the soft
zephyr, in the cloud, the torrent, and the thunder, in the
bursting blossom and the fading branch, in the returning
seasons and the rolling star—there is the INFINITE
ESSENCE, and the mystic development of His Will "
Upon the geological reflections of this eloquent writer,
and also upon his weird-like topographical account of
the surface of our earth's satellite, the moon, we shall
not pause to make any detailed observation. Both por-
tions of the work can perform their own missions, with-
out any adventitious assistance, without guide-post or
interpretation. Besides storing the mind with novel and
wholesome knowledge, this production is calculated to
exercise a moral influence over its readers, filling their
hearts with awe, and humility, and admiration.

THE STORY OF LILLY DAWSON. By Mrs.
Crowe, Authoress of" Susan Hopley." 3 Vols.
The story of Lilly Dawson presents a strange
compound of the natural and the improbable. The
main incidents which it relates are about as mar-
vellous and unlikely as any to be met with in any
romance; while, on the other hand, the lesser occur-
rences, the minor particulars and various minutiae of
the whole are detailed in the most natural manner
possible. Although from its many extraordinary
coincidences and unnatural catastrophes we are com-
pelled to regard the whole work as purely fictitious,
yet from the accurate delineation of character,
from the probable manner in which events,
however unlikely in themselves, lead one into
the other, and especially from the great simpli-
city and truthfulness with which domestic scenes and
incidents are pourtrayed, each chapter (with a few
exceptions) is invested with an air of reality ; and as
we read on, all appears natural, and, consequently,
interesting. The character of Lilly, the heroine, is
in its entirety certainly not a natural one—it is
purely ideal—but it embodies a very beautiful notion,
one full of truth and worthy of all attention, and one
which, though generally admitted i❑ theory, is as
generally denied in practice—namely, that in the
various duties and difficulties of life, the heart is the
best teacher and the best guide ; and that as our
purest thoughts and noblest actions—humility, devo-
tion, self-sacrifice, and a myriad others—are inspired
by its gentle promptings, so is a pure and affectionate
heart the best portion and surest guide, better, more
valuable, and more available than any merely mental
endowments or fascinating manners or refined ac-
complishments. This idea is fully carried out in the

history of Lilly ; at a very early age, the only sur-
vivor of a. shipwrecked crew, she fell into the hands of
some smugglers, who brought her up and treated her
as their servant. Without the least education of any
kind, without an idea in her ?bind or a feeling in her
heart, she grew up, living a life of toil, hard-worked
and ill-treated, living and practising only the duties
of industry and obedience. She grew up, that is to
say, her frame developed and her years increased,
while in heart and mind she remained a child, or
something more ignorant and more helpless. Gradu-
ally, however, the change took place; she at last
found friends; she heard for the first time
words of kindness, and her heart for the
first time beat with a kindly emotion. Un-
taught and unlearned, she was ignorant no
longer; her heart developed her intellect. Obedient
to its promptings, though unable to think and reason
correctly, she was enabled to act wisely and well,
though not in accordance with the world's wisdom.
She obeyed a higher teaching. Her life was a con-
tinued illustration of that beautiful maxim—
" He never errs who sacrifices self."
The development of Lilly's character—indeed, all
her conduct, all the history of her heart—is very
beautifully and truthfully described. She experi-
ences, not only many strange adventures, but many
severe trials ; ardent and devoted in friendship and
love, her lover leaves her and her friend proves false ;
yet, though oppressed by many bitter and painful
sensations, her true heart remains firm. So stedfast
is her friendship, and so humble her love, that deception
cannot wholly destroy the one, nor desertion in anywise
impair the other. The various traits of Lilly'scharacter
are more forcibly manifested by her contrast to her
friend, the brilliant and beautiful May Elliott. The
character of the latter is very skilfully drawn, and is
doubtless not without its living prototypes ; endowed
with every outward attraction, with every fascination
of form and manner, possessing just enough of good
temper and generosity to veil her various defects,
May completely eclipsed her more unpretending and
snore deserving friend. Her vanity and selfishness,
Lilly's devotion and humility, and the changing senti-
ments of Philip Ryland, forgetting the humble Lilly
in his admiration for her brilliant friend, are all
described in a most natural and interesting manner.
Speaking of the authority which the fascinating May
had obtained over her lover, the authoress observes,
that "it is constantly thus in real life; these are the
women that by ruling men have ruled empires," and
takes occasion to offer some very judicious remarks
on the important subject of female education. Very
judicious and correct they are, to a certain extent at
least, for we cannot agree with her conclusions—in-
deed, we do not quite comprehend them. For instance,
at the foot of one of the pages we find the following
note :—" It gives us great satisfaction to learn that the
women of Berne, in Switzerland, are at this time pe-
titioning for equal rights ; and that one of the Ame-
rican States is about to pass a law, giving females
power over their own property." With this " great
satisfaction" we do not certainly sympathise, and with
many remarks of a similar purport we cannot cer-
tainly coincide ; beside which, we are disap-
pointed and dissatisfied at meeting with them
in such a place, because they are so entirely
at variance with the beautiful ideas embodied
in the character of the heroine. It is strange, and
indeed, quite anomalous, to find an advocate for what
are called " the rights of woman," and one anxious for
her " introduction into active life and employments,"
in the person of the authoress, who, in the character
and history of Lilly Dawson, has forcibly pointed out
the true object of a woman's life, and the fitting
sphere for her employments. Without any great
mental capacities or culture, without perhaps ever
dreaming of her " rights," Lilly performed her various
duties, and passed through life, blessing and blessed;
and the last few words of the last volume sums up her
character, and tells her history in a brief line
from her epitaph, " for Lilly's life was love." A
more beautiful character and a happier history than
which it were difficult to find for any individual, es-
pecially a woman ; conveying, perhaps, a similar idea,
though more beautifully expressed, to that old Roman
epitaph which Scott so singularly misapplies to his
Surgeon's Daughter"—" Domum mansit, lanam
fecit." This idea Mrs. Crowe has so beautifully deli-
' neated in her beautiful history of Lilly's life and
Lilly's love, that we are sorry to find her making
use of the remarks to which we have referred. We
have already spoken of the very unnatural character
of this story as a whole ; but though this is
forgotten in the excellence of individual parts,
we must, nevertheless, protest against one or
two material blemishes. In the first place, our au-
thoress evinces too great a partiality for the horrible
and the mysterious. A writer who does not pos-
sess enough ability of his own to excite interest, or
arrest attention, may, perhaps, be glad to have re-
course to the adventitious aids of mystery and
horrors—as a gaudy colouring is often thrown over
an inferior picture, in the hope of disguising its
defects. But Mrs. Crowe has no need of such assist-
ance; the most interesting portions of her narrative
are those which contain her natural delineations of
natural individuals and natural events. We should
have liked the book far better without the introduc-
tion of murders—one chapter, the last of the second
volume, might have been most advantageously omit-
ted. It is not only very horrible, very revolting in-
deed, but it is very improbable, not to say impos-
sible, in all its details, and is obnoxious every way.
Another murder is less plainly spoken of ; it is enve-
loped in mystery—perhaps in order to increase the
interest—a mystery indeed bordering upon the super-
natural, for the victim " appears" before his mistress
on the night of his murder; and Mrs. Crowe, in re-
ference to this, gives us to understand that she be-
lieves in the possibility of such appearances ; nay,
more, that she is about to favour us with a volume
on the subject, to be denominated " The Night-side
of Nature." Without for a moment presuming to
call in question her ability to write on
such a theme, and her power of bringing
forward the most convincing arguments as to the
fact that " millions of spiritual beings walk the earth,"
we would merely venture to ask, what, after all, will
be the utility of the endeavour ? For our own part,
we would much rather receive from Mrs. Crowe, not
a mystic volume about the " Night-side of Nature,"
but an interesting account of the every-day doings of
life, a theme on which she is so well qualified to write ;
for notwithstanding all the mystery thrown round the
murder to which we have alluded, the most interest-
ing part of the affair connected with it—per-
haps the moat interesting part of the whole
three volumes —is the natural and affecting
description of poor Winny's grief for the loss
of her lover. We have been particular in call-
ing attention to the—to our thinking—great
defects of this interesting and able work, and
we have done so chiefly on account of the
great interest it possesses, and the great ability
it displays. In a common-place work faults may be
overlooked ; they and it will be soon forgotten to-
gether ; but when any book from certain good
qualities is likely to be much read, and when its
author will in consequence be likely to produce more,
it becomes necessary to point out its faults, both by
way of caution to its readers, and counsel to its
author. Therefore, after bestowing due praise upon
the very natural descriptions of domestic life, upon
the very accurate portraits and nice discrimination, of
character to be met with in " Lilly Dawsoi?, ' above
all, after awarding most hearty commendation to the
principles inculcated, and the moral impressed by the
whole, we must express our entire disapproval of all
the murders, whether minutely described or darkly
hinted at ; our dissatisfaction with the mysteries, both
as regards the supernatural appearance and the pro-
mised revelations, and our dissent from the remarks
upon the rights of women ; with these exceptions,
" Lilly Dawson" is, as we have said before, a very
interesting able and work. The story has been dra-
matised, and is being performed at the Surrey
Theatre.

Mrs. Nisbett (Lady Boothby), the most popular
actress of the day, has resolved to return to the stage,
and will re-appear at the Haymarket Theatre (the scene
of her former triumphs) in Sheridan Knowles's comedy
of the Love Chase, in her original character of Constance.
How TO MANAGE AN Ass.—The following is an
instance of a sort of eccentricity in an ass, but of such
an ass as the learned Dogberry could nut justly have
written down an as.s in his sense of the word. A
gentleman, from whom I received the anecdote, was
walking down a lane near a town in Norfolk, when he
found himself in company with the following personages
—an ass, with a lubLerly youth of seventeen or eighteen
years old upon his back, beating the animal most an-
mercifully with a suck on the head and neck—an old
man, armed with a hedge-stake, striking at the hocks
and hind quarters, and a bey of eleven or twelve, also
with a stick, cuttirg here and there as opportunity
offered. The animal. was certainly as awkward as an
animal could well be,kicking, turning round, and throw-
ing his feet upon the raised footpath, at the same time
resolutely refusing to stir one step in advance. "Isn't
this a nice brute we have got here, Sir?" said the old
man to my informant, " we have been trying this three-
quarters of an hour to get him on, and we can't." The
gentleman t )1d him be would try what he could do, and
having disarmed the three of their sticks, and laid them
on the path, commenced a milder course of treatment by
patting the animal on the neck, rubbing his nose, and
speaking kindly to him. lie evidently understood this
tone of kindness, for hardly two minutes bad elapsed,
before, on the word of command, and a farewell pat on
the neck, he cantered off as gaily as possible, with the
lout on his back, and in the proper direction. Now,
here was a case of eccentric temper in an animal. One
might almost fancy that it reasoned in the following
manner:—"As this fellow treats me in a becoming
manner, and conducts himself like a gentleman, I don't
mind if I go on ; but if ever those three blackguards
with the sticks should have made me stir one inch
further I'd be shot!" Sterne pleaded well in behalf of
this useful, gentle, submissive, and might be made tract-
able, animal, but alas! many years have rolled by, and
the poor donkey still feasts on thistles, and not on mac-
caroons!—Jesse's Favourite Haunts.

Mr. 11. Lambton, M.P., left Farrance's Hotel yester-
day for Ryde, Isle of Wight.