Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

NEW YORK

THURSTON, TORRY, AND EMERSON, PRINTERS.

SYSTEM OF THE HEAVENS AS REVEALED

BY LORD ROSSE'S TELESCOPES.1

SOME. years ago, some person or other, [in fact I believe it was myself,] published a paper from the German of Kant, on a very interesting question, viz., the age of our own little Earth. Those who have never seen that paper, a class of unfortunate people whom I I..... suspect to form rather the majority in our present perverse generation, will be likely to misconceive its object. Kant's purpose was, not to ascertain how many ears the Earth had lived: a million of years, more or less, made very little difference to him. What he wished to settle was no such barren conundrum. For, had there even been any means of coercing the Earth into an honest answer, on such a delicate point, which the Sicilian canon, Recupero, fancied that there was; 2 but which, in my own opinion, there neither is, nor ought to be,- (since a man deserves to be cudgelled who could put such improper questions to a lady planet,)—still what would it amount to? What good

would it do us to have a certificate of our dear little

mother's birth and baptism? Other people-people in Jupiter, or the Uranians may amuse themselves with her pretended foibles or infirmities: it is quite safe to do so at their distance; and, in a female planet like Venus, it might be natural, (though, strictly speaking, not quite correct,) to scatter abroad malicious insinuations, as though our excellent little mamma had begun to wear false hair, or had fost some of her front teeth. But all this, we men of sense know to be gammon. Our mother-Tellus, beyond all doubt, is a lovely little thing. I am satis fied that she is very much admired throughout the Solar System: and, in clear seasons, when she is seen to advantage, with her bonny wee pet of a Moon tripping round her like a lamb, I should be thankful to any gentleman who will mention where he has happened to observe —either he or his telescope will he only have the goodness to say, in what part of the heavens he has discovered a more elegant turn-out. I wish to make no personal reflections. Iname, ng names, Only this I say, that, though some people have the gift of seeing things that other people never could see, and though some other people or other some people are born with a silver spoon in the mouths, so that, generally, their geese count for swans, yet, after all, swans or geese, it would be a pleasure to me, and really a curiosity, to see the planet that could fancy herself entitled to sneeze at our Earth. And then, if she (viz., our Earth,) keeps but one Moon, even that (you know) is an advantage as regards some people that keep none. There are people, pretty well known to you and me, that cat