Round the Standard of Old ENGLISH CUSTOM, we'll rally,

And be blest in Love, Friendship, and LORTON'S Sweet VALE.

"Plurality of Worlds," first rendered the conception familiar to common minds. This notion of a plurality of worlds was generally inculcated by the Greek philo

Newcastle upon Tyne, August, 1827.

Discoveries

OF THE

W. C.

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

No. VIII.

THE MILKY WAY.

That lucid whitish zone in the firmament among the fixed stars, which we call the "Milky Way," was supposed by the Pythagoreans to have once been the sun's path, wherein he had left that trace of white, which we now observe there. The Peripatetics asserted, after Aristotle, that it was formed of exhalations, suspended high in air. These were gross mistakes; but all the ancients were not mistaken.

Democritus, without the aid of a telescope, preceded Galileo in remarking, that "what we call the milky way, contained in it an innumerable quantity of fixed stars, the mixture of whose distant rays occasioned the whiteness which we thus denominate," or, to express it in Plutarch's words, it was "the united brightness of an immense number of stars."

THE FIXED STARS PLURALITY OF
WORLDS.

The conceptions of the ancients respect ing the fixed stars were not less clear than ours. Indeed, the opinions of the moderns on this subject have been adopted within a century from those great masters, after having been rejected during many ages. It would be reckoned almost an absurdity at present, to doubt of those stars being suns like ours, each respectively having planets of their own, revolving around them, and forming various solar systems, more or less resembling ours. Philosophy, at present, admits this theory, derived from

of it, says, that "he was so far from finding fault with it, that he thought it highly probable there had been, and were, like this of ours, an innumerable, though not absolutely infinite, multitude of worlds; wherein, as well as here, were land and water, invested by sky."

Anaximenes was one of the first who taught, that "the stars were immense masses of fire, around which certain terrestrial globes, imperceptible to us, accomplished their periodic revolutions." By these terrestrial globes, turning round those masses of fire, he evidently meant planets, such as ours, subordinate to their own sun, and forming a solar system.

Anaximenes agreed with Thales in this opinion, which passed from the Ionic to the Italic sect; who held, that every star was a world, containing in itself a sun and planets, all fixed in that immense space, which they called ether.

Heraclides, and all the Pythagoreans likewise taught, that " every star was a world, or solary system, having, like this of ours, its sun and planets, invested with an atmosphere of air, and moving in the This opinion seems to have been of still fluid ether, by which they were sustained." more ancient origin. There are traces of it in the verses of Orpheus, who lived in the time of the Trojan war, and taught that there was a plurality of worlds; a doctrine which Epicurus also deemed very probable.

Origen treats amply of the opinion of Democritus, saying, that "he taught, that there was an innumerable multitude of worlds, of unequal size, and differing in the number of their planets; that some of them were as large as ours, and placed at unequal distances; that some were inhabited by animals, which he could not take upon him to describe; and that some had neither animals, nor plants, nor any thing like what appeared among us." The philosophic genius of the illustrious ancient discerned, that the different nature of those spheres necessarily required inhabitants of different kinds.

This opinion of Democritus surprised Alexander into a sudden declaration of his unbounded ambition. Ælian reports, that

this young prince, upon hearing Democritus's doctrine of a plurality of worlds, burst into tears, upon reflecting that he had not yet so much as conquered one of them.

It appears, that Aristotle also held this opinion, as did likewise Alcinous, the Platonist. It is also ascribed to Plotinus; who held besides, that the earth, compared to the rest of the universe, was one of the meanest globes in it.

SATELLITES. VORTICES.

In consequence of the ancient doctrine of the plurality of worlds, Phavorinus remarkably conjectured the possibility of the existence of other planets, besides those known to us. "He was astonished how it came to be admitted as certain, that there were no other wandering stars, or planets, but those observed by the Chaldeans. As for his part, he thought that their number was more considerable than was vulgarly given out, though they had hitherto escaped our notice." Here he probably alludes to the satellites, which have since been manifested by means of the telescope; but it required singular penetration to be capable of forming the supposition, and of having, as it were, predicted this discovery. Seneca mentions a similar notion of Democritus; who supposed, that there were many more of them, than had yet come within our

view.

However unfounded may be the system of vortices promulgated by Descartes, yet, as there is much of genius and fancy in it, the notion obtained great applause, and ranks among those theories which do honour to the moderns, or rather to the ancients, from whom it seems to have been drawn, notwithstanding its apparent novelty. In fact, Leucippus taught, and after him Democritus, that "the celestial bodies derived their formation and motion from an infinite number of atoms, of every sort of figure; which encountering one another, and clinging together, threw them selves into vortices; which being thoroughly agitated and circumvolved on all sides, the most subtile of those particles that went to the composition of the whole mass, made towards the utmost skirts of the circumferences of those vortices; whilst the less subtile, or those of a coarser element, subsided towards the centre, forming themselves into those spherical concretions, which compose the planets, the earth, and the sun." They said, that "those vortices were actuated by the rapidity of a fluid

matter, having the earth at the centre of it; and that the planets were moved, each of them, with more or less violence, in proportion to their respective distance from that centre." They affirmed also, that the celerity with which those vortices moved, was occasionally the cause of their carrying off one another; the most powerful and rapid attracting, and drawing into itself, whatever was less so, whether planet or whatever else.

Leucippus seems also to have known that grand principle of Descartes, that" all revolving bodies endeavour to withdraw from their centre, and fly off in a tangent."

RELIQUIE THOMSONIANA.

To the Editor.

Sir, The article relating to Thomson, in a recent number of the Table Book, cannot fail to have deeply interested many of your readers, and in the hope that further similar communications may be elicited, I beg to offer the little I can contribute.

The biographical memoranda, the subject of the conversation in the article referred to, are said to have been transmitted to the earl of Buchan by Mr. Park. It is not singular that no part of it appears in his lordship's " Essays on the Lives and Writings of Fletcher of Saltoun, and the Poet Thomson, 1792." 8vo. Mr. Park's communication was clearly too late for the noble author's purpose. The conversation professes to have been in October, 1791; to my own knowledge the volume was finished and ready for publication late in the preceding September, although the date 1792 is affixed to the title.

Thomson, it is believed, first tuned his Doric reed in the porter's lodge at Dryburgh, more recently the residence of David Stuart Erskine, earl of Buchan; hence the partiality which his lordship evinced for the memory of the poet. At p. 194 of the Essays are verses to Dr. De (la) Cour, in Ireland, on his Prospect of Poetry, which are there ascribed to Thomson, and admitted as such by Dr. Thomson, who directed the volume through the press; although it is certain that Thomson in his lifetime disavowed them. The verses to Dr. De la Cour appeared in the Daily Journal for November 1734; and Cave, the proprietor and editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, at the end of the poetical department in that miscellany for August, 1736, states himself "assured, from Mr.

Thomson, that, though the verses to Dr. De la Cour have some lines from his Seasons, he knew nothing of the piece till he saw it in the Daily Journal."

The appellation of the "oily man of God," in the Essays, p. 258, was intended by the earl of Buchan for Dr. Murdoch, who was subsequently a biographer of Thomson. Such designations would puzzle a conjuror to elucidate, did not contemporary persons exist to afford a clue to them.

The recent number of the Table Book is not at hand, but from some MS. papers now before me,-James Robertson, surgeon to the household at Kew, who married the sister of Amanda, was the bosom friend of Thomson for more than twenty years. His conversation is said to have been facetious and intelligent, and his character exemplarily respectable. He died at his residence on Richmond Green after four days' illness, 28th October, 1791, in his eighty-fourth year.

The original MS. of the verses to Miss Young, the poet's Amanda, on presenting her with his "Seasons," printed in the Essays, p. 280, were communicated by a Mr. Ramsay, of Ocherlyne, to his lordship. Some other presentation lines, with the Seasons, to the poet Lyttleton, were transcribed from a blank leaf of the book at Hagley, by Johnstone, bishop of Worcester, and transmitted by his son to the earl of Buchan in 1793 or 1794, consequently too late for publication. They follow here :

Go, little book, and find our friend,
Who Nature and the Muses loves;
Whose cares the public virtues blend,
With all the softness of the groves.

A fitter time thou can'st not choose His fostering friendship to repay :Go then, and try, my rural muse,

To steal his widowed hours away.

Among the autograph papers which I possess of Ogle, who published certain versifications of Chaucer, as also a work on the Gems of the Ancients, are some verses by Thomson, never yet printed; and their transcripts, Mr. Editor, make their obeisance before you :

Come, gentle god of soft desire !

Come and possess my happy breast;
Not fury like, in flames and fire,

In rapture, rage, and nonsense drest.

These are the vain disguise of love,
And, or bespeak dissembled pains,
Or else a fleeting fever prove,
The frantic passion of the veins.

But come in Friendship's angel-guise,
Yet dearer thou than friendship art,
More tender spirit at thine eyes,

More sweet emotions at thy heart.

Oh come! with goodness in thy train;
With peace and transport, void of storm.
And would'st thou me for ever gain?

Put on Amanda's waning form.

The following, also original, were writt by Thomson in commendation of his muc loved Amanda :

Sweet tyrant Love, but hear me now!

And cure while young this pleasing smart, Or rather aid my trembling vow,

And teach me to reveal my heart.

Tell her, whose goodness is my bane,
Whose looks have smil'd my peace away,
Oh! whisper how she gives me pain,
Whilst undesigning, frank, and gay.]

'Tis not for common charms I sigh,
For what the vulgar, beauty call;
'Tis not a cheek, a lip, an eye,

But 'tis the soul that lights them all.

THE BERKSHIRE MISER.

The economy and parsimony of the Rev. Morgan Jones, late curate of Blewbury, & parish about six miles from Wallingford, were almost beyond credibility; he having outdone, in many instances, the celebrated Elwes, of Marcham.

For many of the last years of Mr. Jones's ministerial labours, he had no servant to attend any of his domestic concerns; and he never had even the assistance of a fe male within his doors for the last twelve years. The offices of housemaid, chamber maid, cook, and scullion, and even most part of his washing and mending, were performed by himself; he was frequently known to beg needles and thread at some of the farm-houses, to tack together his tattered garments, at which, from practice,