by the help of his glasses, is said to have discovered. near 700 such stars. Besides these, the Doctor has observed other appearances in the heavens, which he calls. Nebulae or cloudy stars; being apparently surrounded by a faint, luminous substance, of considerable extent; of these he has given us a catalogue of 2000, which he has described, and is of opinion that the starry heavens are replete with nebulo.There are also several little whitish spots which appear magnified, and more luminous, when seen through telescopes, yet without any stars being distinguishable in them.

When, to these grand, magnificent, and numerous appearances in the heavens, we add those wandering stars, or planetary bodies we have just been considering, which, according to the appearances they put on, are denominated as stars of different magnitudes, together with that host of cometary orbs which occasionally appear and disappear from our hemisphere, who can forbear exclaiming:

"This gorgeous apparatus! this display!
This ostentation of creative power!
This theatre;-what eye can take it in?
By what divine enchantment was it rais'd?
How boundless in magnificence and might!"

The fixed stars are so called to distinguish them from the planets, and other wandering bodies, that move among them; for, in respect to these, they seem to be fixed, and, with regard to each other, they do not appear to change place. Thus, while the pla

netary bodies are not to be found in precisely the same place for any two successive days together, the stars, for instance, in the constellation of Ursa Major, or the Great Bear, have not been observed to alter their situation, with respect to each other, since the creation of the world. But there are few rules without exception; and here it must be observed, that new stars have been discovered, which were unknown to the ancients, and many of those which appeared in old catalogues are not now visible, while numbers seem gradually to vanish, and others appear to have a periodical increase and decrease of magnitude.

All the fixed stars, however, have an apparent motion round the heavens once in twenty-four hours; for, although that of the star nighest the pole, and consequently called the polar star, be so imperceptible as to be scarcely distinguished, yet, even that star appears to move in a very small circle; and this imaginary motion is occasioned by the same cause as produces the rising and setting of the sun; viz. the revolution of the earth on its axis.

Though the number of the fixed stars, visible to the naked eye, fall infinitely short of what a superficial observer might be apt to imagine, yet, from the great resemblance they bear to each other, and the confused manner in which they appear at such vast distances, it was found necessary, by the ancient astronomers, to class and arrange them under various figures and resemblances, to which they gave the names of several persons and things; and these ima

ginary likenesses, many of which, individually, obtained the names of persons celebrated in antiquity, were in general called constellations.

The distances of the fixed stars from the earth is supposed to be very great; so much so, that were a cannon ball discharged from the nearest of them, it is computed that it would take 7,000,000 years before it could reach the earth. So far, indeed, are these luminous orbs removed from us, that their magnitude cannot be increased by the best magnifiers; and, notwithstanding the great extent of the earth's orbit or path round the sun, a fixed star does not appear to be nearer to us when the earth is in that part of its orbit nearest to it, than it seemed to be when the earth was at the greatest distance, or 190,000,000 of miles farther removed from the star.

Dr. Bradley calculates the nearest fixed star from the earth to be 40,000 times the diameter of the earth's orbit, and the distance of Draconis from the earth to be 400,000 times that of the sun, or 38,000,000,000,000 miles!

As to the size of the fixed stars, some idea may be formed from the vast distance at which they are visible. Were the sun removed to as great a distance from us as we are from the nearest of these stars, it is not probable that he would appear greater to us, and the different apparent magnitudes of the stars is supposed only to arise from their different distances. Indeed, from a comparison of the light afforded by a fixed star to that of the sun, it has been concluded that the fixed stars do not differ materi

ally, in magnitude, from that luminary; and, as it is impossible that these bodies can shine from such a distance with a reflected light, it has also been concluded, that the fixed stars must be of the same nature of the sun, and, like him, shine with their own native lustre.

The Uses of the fixed Stars.

"Ask for what end these heavenly bodies shine;
Earth for whose use?-Pride answers, 'tis for mine!"

"But do these worlds display their beams, or guide
Their orbs, to serve thy use, to please thy pride?
Thyself but dust, thy stature but a span,
A moment thy duration-foolish man!"

"As well may the minutest emmet say,
That Caucasus was rais'd to pave his way;
The snail, that Lebanon's extended wood,
Was destin'd only for his walk and food:
The vilest cockle, gaping on the coast
That bounds the ample seas, as well may boast
The craggy rock projects above the sky,

That he in safety at its feet may lie;

And the whole ocean's confluent waters swell,

Only to quench his thirst, or move and blanch his shell."

As every part of the vast machine of the universe seems wisely made, in some degree or other, subservient to the whole, notwithstanding the vast distances of the stars from the earth, it would be extremely improper to deny that they may be, to a certain extent, useful to man. How often do they serve

to cheer the gloom of the midnight sky, when neither sun nor moon appears. In the early ages, those who went down to the sea in ships had scarce any other sure guide for their wandering vessel. They still serve to direct the benighted traveller in his so litary journey; and, by means of the revolutions of the stars, the ploughman, even had he no other directory, would know exactly when to plough his fields and sow his seeds. But if, as we have seen, the stars bear such a striking analogy to the sun in their magnitude, their nature, and some of their properties, have we not reason to conclude that they have far more important offices to fulfil than merely to be useful, in a few respects, to man? that they, also, like the sun, are each the centre of its respective system? But where does this reasoning lead us? for, if the stars are suns, and centres of other systems than that to which our earth belongs, does it not naturally follow that there must be other worlds revolving around them? and if other worlds, must they not also be inhabited? This is a humiliating lesson to the sons of pride, who have indulged the thought that every thing in the universe was intended chiefly for their use; but it is not to be supposed that the Omnipotent Creator, who has not a leaf or drop of water unpeopled, should have left such immense bodies destitute of inhabitants. "It is surely much more rational to suppose them the abodes of intelligent beings; of beings endowed with capacities of knowing, loving, and adoring their Creator; provided and blessed with every object conducive