Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1850-06-19
LOST STARS.

rope was changed after her death, is by nc
means the only missing star, several others
having disappearedfrom the armament which
were enumerated even so late as the Cata.
logue of FIamstead, the first of whose "His.
toria Celestis' appeared in l7l2. Who
shall tell us whittier they have gone? Have
they accomplished the purpose of their crea.
ton, and then returned into chaos, making
way for other agencies and forms or have
they been absorbed into the moon, the hid
ng-place, according TO Ariosto, Of every.
thing that is los.9 Whichever their final des.
tina,ion, may no. the earth be doomed to
follow them; and who shall assure US thai
the fiat Of our extinction shall not 60 forth
tomorrow What an awful change from
The imperceptible rotation around the sun
which our globe has per(ormed for so many
countless ages, and with such unerring pre-
cision, to find ourselves suddenly thrown
"sheer DER the crystal ba,tlemen,s," and
Precipitated with inconceivable rapidi,y in
to bos,omless infnitudes of space which
have never been visited by single ray OF
light! What utter blackness of darkness,
what intensity and universally of freezing,
what an unimaginablc accumulation of hor-
rors, until the last groan Of the last man
shall restore the silence Of death to the
blank and boundless solitude Of chaos, and
the inhabitants of other planets shall specu-
late upon the fate of the obliterated earth,
the lost tomb Of an extinct human race, even
as we are now wondering wba. may have
become of the lost Pleiad
ho ~
form which was probably its original state,
and so be made subservient 10 new, more
exalted, and more perfect combinations; bu.
we have no reason to suppose that anything
has been absolutely annhilated even by
combustion. How sublime the though, that
the sun itself, and the whole system Of crea-
tlon, as it now exists, may be destined to
wear out, and TO be renewed in other and
perhaps more glorious forms DR.. Darwin
to the Stars" passage which we may be
excused for quoting, both on account Of its
appositeness to the subject, and of its grea.
intrinsic beauty -
Flowers Of the sky !-ye too to Time shall yield.
Fraii'as your silken sister of the field,
Star after star from heavens bright arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall
And death and night and chaos mngle all -
Till from the wreck, emerging Ger the storm,
Immortal Nature shows her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre wings of fame,
And scars and shines, another and the same.
EFFECT OF AN ENLARGEMENT OF KNOW
LEDGE.
If knowledge is power, the diffusion of
education among the masses must inevi!a-
bly, tend TO an increase of the democratic at
the expense Of the aristocratic influence
intellectual equality will eventually produce
political equality for where there is even
an approximation towards one common re-
public of letters, there will be cons,an,
yearning toward the same form in the con-
stilution-a conca.enation of cause and ef-
feet which may partly explain some of the
late European convulsions. A transition so
radical can hardly be effected without dis
turbance; but this distribution Of power into
new channels, like the overdowing Of the
Nile, though turbulent, and perhaps even
destructive at first, will leave fertility and
improvement. behind it. The sympathy be-
tween knowledge and power will awaken
other affinities which have hitherto been on
ly partially developed. from the harmony
and reactve influence Of matter and mind
i, is difficult to believe that physical science
can continue to make its present marvellous
progress without correspondent moral ad-
vancement. Nations, moreover are brought
INTO such increased communication by steam
travelling, while the most distant minds ma y
be received into such instantaneous com
munIcatlon by means Of the electric iele-
graph, that certain fraterniZation and ho-
mogeneousness can hardly fail to ?ervade
the whole family of mankind, when this ex-
pansion Of intercourse shall have received
It's full development, and have produced its
ultimate Effects Clio veniat optabile tenn
pus
MEN OF GENIUS NOT ALWAYS MEN OF
SENSE.
No man is hero to his polet de chdmbre,
and few authors are deemed wise men bv
their intimate acquaintance. Finger-posts,
not guides, their writings often teach us
what road to pursue, their actions which to
avoid. AS Nature generally compensates
the loss of the one sense by an increased
aculeness in another, so is pre-eminence in
any mental faculty often accompanied by
some deficiency in an opposite 6I,ec.ion.-
Hence The inconsistency SO frequently e.
vlnced by men of letters. The fleet gray
hound has no scent, the beautiful peacock
has a discordant voice, and the man of bril-
liant Imagination has seldom a good judg-
ment. "En verite, mon cher La Fontaine,"
said Madame de la Sabiere that distinguish
ed writer-"vous seriez bien bette, 81 vous
n'avicz pas tant d'espri,." When one scale
Of our tnIen, is heaped up, it vii generally
be found tia. tho materials are taken from
another.