Lowest of all, and in the midft it lies, See the note on Book ii. ver. 562. -The fun arofe, with beams fo bright, That all th' horizon laugh'd to fee the joyous fight: He, with his tepid rays, the rose renews, Ver. 513. Having made the earth, as the foundation of the whole world, and the sky the walls of it, as he himself calls it, he, in thefe nine verfes, places the fun and moon, which are of a middle nature, between the sky and the air, as being compofed of principles lighter than those of the air, and heavier than thofe of the sky, in the very confines of the air and fky, where, he tells us, they are in perpetual motion, as the lungs and hearts in animals. He takes no notice of the other planets or stars, though his tranflator does. But let us hear the beft of poets, and a Chriftian philofopher, defcribing this part of the creation. He fpeaks in the perfon of an angel: -I faw the rifing birth Of nature from the unapparent deep; I faw, when, at God's word, this formlefs mafs, The black, tartareous, cold, infernal drugs, Ver. 522, 523. But the work is not yet perfact: we have hitherto neither fire, air, nor wa ter. He tells us, therefore, in thefe fifteen verfes, firft, That that feculent mafs, that funk together to the bottom, being preffed on all fides by the beams of the fun, and the heat of the fky, contracted itfelf: Thence exhaled the fea like fweat; but the lighter particles, mounting higher, com pofed the elements of fire and air. In the next place, that fome of the particles of this mafs be ing more hard and ftiff than the others, they did not all fubfide alike, and hence the hollow places to receive the fea, and the channels for the rivers; and hence too the level of the plains, and the tur gidness of the mountains: -The mountains huge appear Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave Into the clouds; their tops afcend the sky: So high as heav'd the tumid hills, fo low Down funk a hollow bottom, broad and deep, Capacious bed of waters; thither they Hafted with glad precipitance, up roll'd, As globes on duft, conglobing from the dry; Part rife in crystal walls, or ridge direct; As armies, at the call Troop to their ftandard; fo the watʼry throng, Ver. 523. Lucret. Succidit et falfo fuffudit gurgite foffas. Plutarch. de Placit. Philofoph. lib. iii. xaf 'TE τὸ ὕδωρ ἐπισὰν ἐκοίλανε τὰς ὑποκειμένες τόπες. Από the fame author, lib. i. cap. 4. de Placit. Philofoph. expreffes this opinion of Lucretius more at large: Of thofe bodies, fays he, which funk down, and fettled below, was made the earth; that part of it which was moft fubtle, and of a thinner form and confiftence, gathered round to gether, and engendered the element of water, which, being of a liquid and flowing nature, ra downwards to hollow places, that lay low, and were capable to receive and hold it. Ver. 529 The firmament, the celeftial fpheres, the heavens. They were called ether, ázi rï ¿è Fier, from their being in perpetual motion. Ver 537. That he may the better explain the motions of the ftars, he previously teaches, in thefe fourteen verfes, that the most refplendent and liquid ether, having mounted higher than the inconstant and turbulent air, is wholly undisturbed by any manner of forms, and rolls in a conftant and like motion; which motion of the ether is pot in the leaft incredible, fince the Eazine fea does the like, and is continually flowing into the Propontic, without changing its course. "Lucr. inde ether igniter ipfe. For the 20cients believed the ftars to be either very fre, ← 1 of a fiery nature, and therefore called the ether ignifer, fire-bearing; as they did likewife fignifer, or fiellifer, that bears the signs, or stars. Or elfe the poet, in this place, defcribes the region of elementary sirtue, which lies next under the hea ven, as Manilius fings, in these excellent verfes: Ignis in æthercas volucer fe fuftulit auras, Summaque complexus ftellantis culmina cœli, Flammarum vallo naturæ mœnia fecit. Lib. i. ver. 144. Upward the flame on active pinions fled, For nature's bulwark rais'd a wall of flame. Creech. Ver. 545. The point of the axle-tree, on which aftronomers imagine the heaven to be turned. There are two poles, the north pole, known by a far called polus arcticus, and the south, called antericus, which is invifible to us. The word pole, comes from mode, to turn. They are likewife called cardines cali, the hinges of the heaven; becaufe it being hung upon them, like a door on its hinges, is rolled and turned about. Ver. 547. Here our tranflator has mistaken the enfe of his author, who speaks not of the flux and reflux of the ocean, but of the course of the Buxine fea. For how can that motion of the cean be alleged as a parallel inftance to confirm he one, regular, and conftant motion of the pheres? The words in the original, are as fol แ nificat Nam modicè fluere, atque uno poffe ethera nifu, be two airs, one that may prefs from above, and drive it down to the weft; and another, that may be faid to bear and lift it up from beneath. If the orb be motionlefs, then fome rapid particles of the sky, ftruggling to get into the empty space, and not able to force their way, and break through the strong walls of the world, are whirled about, and drag the stars with them; or fome external air rushes in, and turns them about; or, laftly, The stars move forward of themfelves, in fearch of proper food to keep alive their fires. Cleanthus, in Cicero de Naturâ Deorum, lib. ii. alleging reafons to evince the belief of a Deity, urges, for the laft and most weighty, " æquab litatem motûs et converfionis," &c. The equa bility of the motion and converfion of the heavens, fun, moon, and ftars; and their diftinétion in va riety, beauty, and order. The very fight f which, fays he, fufficiently declares them not to be fortuitous or cafual. For what can be more evidently perfpicuous, when we behold and contemplate the heavens, than that there is a God, by whofe excellent providence they are governed? Thus Cicero, who, from the bare fuggettion of nature, difcovered the truth of what our obdu rate poet, by arguments drawn from the contemplation of nature, endeavours to difprove, OF THE FIXED STARS. LUCRETIUS, treating in this place of the ftars, and their motions, affords us an opportunity to fay fomething of thofe glorious and fplendid bodies: The aftronomers diftinguish then into two forts, the fixed ftars and the erratic, which last are likewife called the planets: Of these we will give a fhort account by and by, when our author comes to treat of the fun, moon, &c. and will here confine our inquiries only to the first sort which are called the fixed stars, because they al ways obferve, at least to us they seem to do so, the fame invariable diftance from one another, and from the ecliptic: Hence the sphere, in which they are believed to be placed, is termed, hám, inerrans, because of the inviolable order obferved in their intervals or distances from one another. The chief things to be confidered of them, not as they are reduced into figns and conftellations, with which we fhall not meddle, but fhall take notice of them only as they are diftin and feveral mundane bodies, diffeminated and dif perfed through the immenfe pace of the ethereal region, which we call heaven. The chief things, I fay, that deferve our obfervation, are, I. Their fubftance, concerning which the anVer. 551. Lucretius, when he difputes of the cients differ in opinion: Zorvalter held them to heavens, of the motions of the fpheres, and of be of a fiery tubitance, and to too did the Stoics: thcle things which the Greeks call μετέωρα, me- The Egyptian philofophers, as Diogenes, Laertius teors, never affirms any thing for certain: This in Procm. has recorded their opinion, believed. was the conftant cuftom of the Epicureans, who τῆς ἀτέρας πῦρ εἶναι, καὶ τῇ τέτων κράσει τὰ ἐτὶγῆς thought they difcharged admirably well the partyisodas, that the stars are fire, and that by their of natural philofof hers, if they afligned only any contemperation all things are produced on the fible caufes of the celeftial motions. Our poct earth. in Orpheus, the fun, moon, and stars, are does the like in thefe twenty-eight verfes. If, called, 'Haigaon, the members of Vulcan. fays he, the whole orb be moved, then there may Thales held the ftars to be both of an earthy and P fiery fubftance. Empedocles maintained them to be fiery, and to confift of that very fire which the ether contained in itself, and ftruck out at its first fecretion. The opinion of Anaxagoras deferves to be mentioned, for no other reafon, than because it is extravagantly ridiculous; for he affirmed, that the ambient ether, being of a fiery nature, does, by the impetuous fwiftnefs of its motion, whisk up ftones from the earth, and that they being fet on fire, become stars, and are carried from eaft to weft. Diogenes would have them to be of the nature of pumice ftones fet on fire, and that they are as the breathing holes, and noftrils of the world, by which it draws in its breath. Xenophanes, that they are clouds fet on fire in the manner of coals, and that they are extinguished by day, and at night rekindled. Heraclides and the Pythagoreans believed each star to be a particular world by itfelf, exifting in the infinite ethereal space, and containing an carth, an air, and a fky; and this opinion is found in the works of Orpheus: For his followers affirmed the ftars to be fo many diftinct and individual worlds. Plato held them to confit chiefly of a fiery nature, but fuch as to admit the mixture of other elements, as it were, in the nature of a cement to compact and hold them together. Ariftotle and his followers, affert them to be of the fame fubftance with the heavens, but only more condensed; and that they are fimple bodies, without the mixture of any elements. Pliny, and many others, believe them to be compofed of the fame nature as exhalations or vapours, and confequently to confift of a fubftance partly aqueous, partly aerial. Of all thefe opinions, the moft probable is, that the ftars are fiery bodies. This was the fentiment of the ancient Chriftian church, which, in Hymn. Feria fecunda ad Vefper. of which Hymn, St. Ambrofe is faid to be the author, fings as follows: Immenfe cœli conditor, Calum dedifti limitem, Firmans locum cœleftibus, Simulque terræ rivulis, Ut unda flammas temperet; Where we find the reafon why the waters are placed above the heavens, viz. to refrain and temper the exceffive fervour of the fun and ftars. And again, in Hymn. Fer. quarta ad Velper. the fame church fings: Cali Deus fan&iffime, And of the fame opinion are most of the fathers, not only of the Latin, but of the Greek church Jikewife. Cyrillus, Hierofolym. Cæfareus, Theodoretus, D. Chryfoftom, Gregor. Nyffen. Procopius, and Anaftafius Sinaita, all of them pofitively affert the ftars to be of a fiery nature; and with them agree Tertullian, St. Ambrofe, St. Auguf tine, Arnobius, Lactantius, Anfelmus, Alcuinus, Beda, &c. Befides, many of the eminent modem philofophers and aftronomers concur in the fame opinion. Induced, therefore, by all these authe rities, we may reasonably conclude, that the ftars are compound, not fimple bodies, that they are compofed of elementary matter, formed into fiery globes; that they confift of folid and liquid, as this terraqueous globe of ours; and confequently, that they are fubject to alteration and corrup tion. II. Their light; whether it be innate, and the gift of the Almighty at their creation, or mutua titious, and borrowed from the fun; which lat is the opinion of Metrodorus, in Plutarch, de Placit. Philofoph. lib. ii. cap. 17. and with him agree many of the modern, both philofophers and aftronomers; and it is the belief of fome at this day. The first opinion, however, feems to be the most probable; and Macrobius, in Soma. Scip. lib. i. cap. 19. afferts the truth of it, m thefe words: "Omnes ftellas (fcil. fixas) lumine lucere fuo, quod illæ fupra folem in ipfo puriffimo æthere funt; in quo omne quicquid est, lux caturalis et fua eft." And this agrees with what we faid before touching their fiery nature: For there can be no fire without light. And, indeed, it feems highly improbable, that the fun can luminate the fixed ftars, finee, as Bulialdus, in Aftronom. Philolaic. lib. i. cap. II. obferves, the fun's diameter, if it could be beheld from Satura only, would appear too little, and afford too weak a light fufficiently to illuftrate even that planet, much lefs, therefore, can it impart is light to the fixed ftars, that are removed to great a diftance beyond it. For this reafon, fome believe each of the fixed stars to be the head and chief part of a diftin& mundane fyftem; as the fun is the head and chief part of our vifible fyl tem: And, as the fun has feveral planets, conAtituted and carried about him, fo likewife every one of the fixed ftars has other mundane bodies, like planets difpofed and moving around them; though they are invifible to us, by reafon of their great diftance from our earth. And, according to this opinion, Galilæo, Dialog. iii. Syftem. Col mic. makes no fcruple to affert, that each of the fixed ftars is a fun, exactly of the fame, nature with, and perfectly refembling this of ours; that it ferves befides to illuminate the innumerable other planetary and lunary bodies, within their re fpective fyftems; and, confequently, is endowed with innate and original light. Several other of our modern aftronomers are of the fame opinion; among them Ricciolus, who, Almageft. nov. lib. vi. cap. 2. has thefe words: "Mihi longe probabilior horum (fcil. Bruni, Galilæi, Renati de Cartes, et Reith) opinio videtar, quia magis convenit opificis numinis majeftati, ut non unis cam ftellarum à fe ipfa lucentem, fed plures in ftar folis accenderet: Nec alium fui luminis fonttem agnofcerent, quam omnium luminum patrem Deum." III. Their colour; which vifibly differs according to the variety of their light, as it is blended and attempered by the different conftitution of the matter, or fubftance, of which they are compofed for fome appear to be of a ruddy, others of a leaden hue; fome of a gold colour, others of a filver white, others pallid, &c. whence fome have pretended to form a judgment of their feveral natures, and accordingly have ranged them under the feveral planets, of whofe qualities they imagined them chiefly to partake, having regard to the proportion of refemblance they bear in their colours to thofe of the planets. IV. Their scintillation; which particularly diftinguishes them from the planets, which have no fuch vibration, or twinkling of light; as generally is obferved, more or lefs in all the fixed ftars, at one time more than at another; and moft when the wind is eatterly, as Schickardus in Aftrofcop. obferves. Ariftotle afcribes the caufe of their fcintillation to their remotenefs from our fight; which remoteness is the reafon that our reach them but weakly, and with a trembling laffitude. To this opinion, Pontanus, in Uraniâ, lib. ii. affents, when he fays, eyes Scilicet alta illis regio, fedesque repostæ, the fole caufe of their fcintillation; which he imputes rather to a conftant evibration of lucid matter, or a continual expiration of fiery vapours from those celestial bodies; even, fays he, as we perceive thofe fulgurations and ebullitions in the body of the fun, which, the groffer they are, and in the greater plenty they are ejected, fo much the greater and more vifible fcintillation they caufe. These are the feveral opinions concerning the fcintillation of the ftars. V. Their number; which, according to the computation of Ptolemy, including only those that are most remarkable and visible, and as they are reduced to the fix commonly received degrees of magnitude, amounts to only 1022. And Pliny, lib. ii. cap. 4. reckons them to be 1600. But if we reflect on the number of all the ftars in the firmament, as we regard them by the help of a telescope, which discovers many more than the bare eye can do, we may affirm them to exceed the number of human calculation. Jordano Bruno fays their number is infinite. Ricciolus, fpeaking of the number of the ftars, argues thus: That if the constellation of Orion take up in the heavens the fpace of 500 fquare degrees, as by experience we know it does, and if every square space, whofe fide is but two degrees, contains no lefs than 500 ftars, as Galilæo, by the affiftance of a telescope, obferved that it does, there will be found in the whole conftellation of Orion, at leaft 62,500 ftars, though the bare eye cannot difcover in the whole above 63. According to which proportion, if the rest of the conftellations were examined, and if the difference of the number of stars, that appear by the telescope, over and above those difcerned by the bare eye, were computed, it would amount to above 1000000 ftars, beside those in the Milky Way. Nay, says Ricciolus, Almageft. Nov. tom. i. lib. 6. p. 413. if any man fhould reckon them above 2000000, the number would not feem to me improbable, "Mihi quidem nihil inopinabile finxerit." Some of the rabbins of the Jews will not allow the whole number of ftars to amount to above 12000: but the Cabalifts admit of no lefs than 29000 myriads, which number Schickardus believes too exorbitant; and imagines, that the whole extent of the heavens is not capable of receiving above 26712 myriads, even though they were placed contiguous to one another; but as to this particular of the number of the ftars, we ought to agree with Schottus, who, in Preluf, in Firmament. Itiner. Ecftatic. Kircheri, in Schol. I. fays, That it is an arrogance indeed intolerable, to believe that our fight, how ftrengthened and affifted foever by the help of telescopes, can difcover all the stars in the expanse of heaven; and an extreme piece of folly, to pretend to include them within the bounds of any definite number; that being the work of the Almighty only, who alone numbers the multitude of the ftars, and calls them all by their pames. VI. Their figure, which is apparently spherical or round and yet Plutarch de Placit. Philofoph. lib. ii. cap. 14. relates the different opinions of the ancients, even as to this particular. Cleanther held them to be pyramidical, and that they end in a sharp cone. Anaximents would have them to be like ftuds or nails fixed in the chryftalline firmament, like jewels in a ring. Others imagined them to be flat, and, as it were, fiery and lucid plates, as fo many flat pictures, not of any thicknefs or profundity. Scheinerus, and Antonius Maria de Reitha, will have them to be of divers figures or faces, of a poly-angular shape; and fuch indeed the larger fort of tele fcopes represent them. Kepler, in Epit. Aftronom. p. 498. defcribes them like fo many lucid points or fparkles, cafting forth on all fides their rays of light: infomuch, that we are to take their figure to be only phyfically fpherical, not mathematically fo for, though in the first acceptation, they may be faid to be round bodies; yet, according to the later, their furface may be found to be uneven, and to confift of many angles or fides. VII. Their magnitude, of which divers calcuJations have been made by many eminent aftro. nomers, but to no purpose: for fo great a diver fity of opinions has arifen from them, partly, becaufe authors cannot agree as to the diftances of the ftars from the earth, which is the fuppofed centre of the world; and partly, becaufe of the different estimates of their apparent diameters, that have been made by the eye, by Tycho Brahe, and other more ancient aftronomers; and by telefcopes by the moderns: infomuch, that we ought ingenuoufly to acknowledge with Schickardus, that, “veras illarum magnitudines vere ignoramus," we are indeed ignorant of their true magnitude. VIII. Their place and diftance from the earth, or rather from the fun, which is a question fo hard to refolve. that Pliny long ago pronounced it to be no less than a piece of madnefs to inquire into it and Ricciolus, Almageft. Nov. lib. vi cap. 7. treating of this fubject, has thought fit, in the front of his difcourte, to lay it down as an undeniable truth, that men cannot, by any certain and evident obfervation, come to the true knowledge of the parallax and diftance of the fixed ftars. For it is not known, whether the ftars are all in the fame spherical furface, equally diftant from the centre of the world; or whether they are placed at unequal distances, that is to fay, fome higher, fome lower, as the old Stoics held them to be, fuppofing the difference of their luftre, and of their apparent magnitude, to proceed from the diversity of their fituation, according as they are more or lefs diftant from our fight. Thus Manilius, giving the reafon why fome of the ftars in Orion appear more obfcure than the others, fays, Non quod clara minus, fed quod magis alta recedunt. IX. Their proper motion, which is two-fold: Firft, That of circumrotation about their own centre, around which they are whirled with wa derful celerity; which, as we faid before, is in part the reafon of their fcintillation: and this motion is called "motus vertiginis." Secondly, Their motion of revolution, frem weft to eat: "fecundum ductum Eclipticæ," in which they are obferved to move fo very flowly, that they t ran not through one degree in the ecliptic fooner than in the space of feventy-one years, nineteen days, and twelve hours, within a trifle: and they complete not the whole circle of 360 degrees, in lefs than 25,579 years, which is the "Annus magnus Platonicus;" though the ancients computed it to amount to 36,000 years: And this great Platonic year, which confifts of 25,579 fydereal years, is equal to 25,580 equinoctial years. And thus I have given a fhort account of the most re markable obfervations touching the fixed stars. Ver. 571. The skies and ftars that we fee move continually; and he calls them fingle, becaufe the Epicureans held a multitude of worlds to be in the all, or univerfe, and all of them like this of ours, or even of a greater extent. Ver. 579. But fince Lucretius fo often men tions the great weight of the earth, it may weil be inquired, why it hangs without motion in the air, and does not rather prefs downwards, and fall precipitately into the infinite void? To this the poet anfwers in thefe feventeen verfes, that though it have fo happened that the air only it circumfufed around the earth, yet because both air and earth are bound by natural and kindred ties, and from their very beginning are parts of the fame whole, the earth is no burden to the air; but having, in a manner, laid afide all is weight and compreffion, it only fticks faft, and cleaves naturally to it. But it would not be is, if this earth had been brought out of another world; for, in that cafe, it would prefs heavy up on this air with its weight; even as our bodies feel a little weight that is not a part of them, though neither the head nor the other members are burdenfome to one another, because they are mutually congenial, and bound to one another by a general and common band. Epicurus to Herodotus, fays, τὴν γῆν τῶ ἄέρι ἐποχῆσθαι, ὡς συγγενεί See the note on book ii. ver. 562. Ver. 584 Ariftotle will not allow that the earth is therefore fufpended in the middle of the air, because it is congenial, and, as it were, of 1 piece with it, as Epicurus believed; but fays the reafon is, becaufe it is the heaviest of all the ele ments. And Plato, in Phædon, will have the quability of the earth itself, to be the caufe of its ftation in the middle of the univerfe: According to whole opinion, Ovid. Metam. i. ver. 12. says, Et circumfufo pendebat in aëre tellus Ponderibus librata fuis. And this hypothefis has fo great an appearance of t C |