Part 11

“Pleas’d, as I am, to walk along the sphere Of shining stars, and travel with the year; To leave the heavy earth, and scale the height Of Atlas, who supports the heavenly weight.”

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And Horace acquaints us with the objects of curiosity and research, in the contemplation of which he envied his friend Iccius, who was occupied in that way, on his farm:—

“Quæ mare compescant causæ, quid temperet annum; Stellæ sponte suâ, jussæne, vagentur et errant, Quid premat obscurum Lunæ, quid proferat orbem.” Lib. i. epist. 12, ad Iccium.

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Footnote 38:

Dr. Francis thus versifies this passage, in our language:—

————“What bounds old ocean’s tides; What, through the various year, the seasons guides: Whether the stars, by their own proper force, Or foreign pow’r, pursue their wand’ring course: Why shadows darken the pale Queen of Night; Whence she renews her orb, and spreads her light.”

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Virgil seemed willing to renounce every other study, in order that he might devote himself to the wonders of astronomy. In the second book of his Georgics, he says:

“Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musæ, Quarum sacra fero, ingenti perculsus amore, Accipiant; cælique vias et sidera monstrent, Defectus Solis varius, Lunæque labores; Unde tremor terris, quâ vi maria alta tumescant Obicibus ruptis, rursusque in se ipsa residant; Quid tantum oceano properent se tingere soles Hyberni, vel quæ tardis mora noctibus obstet— Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.” l. 475 and seq.

And, in addition to these classical writers, a modern poet (Mr. Voltaire) appears, by a letter written in the year 1738, to have participated in the regrets expressed by Virgil; and to have been desirous of directing all his faculties towards the sciences. He produced, on the philosophy of Newton, a work which has contributed to the expansion of genius; and, in his epistle to the Marchioness du Chatelet, he pays that great man a very exalted compliment, in these poetic lines:

“Confidens du Tres Haut, substances eternelles, Qui parez de vos feux, qui couvrez de vos ailes Le trône oú votre Maitre est assis parmi vous; Parlez: Du grand Newton n’étiez-vous point jaloux?”

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Footnote 39:

Thus rendered, in English verse, by Mr. Dryden:—

“Ye sacred Muses, with whose beauty fir’d, My soul is ravish’d, and my brain inspir’d; Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear, Would you your poet’s first petition hear; Give me the way of wand’ring stars to know: The depths of heav’n above, and earth below. Teach me the various labours of the moon, And whence proceed th’ eclipses of the sun. Why flowing tides prevail upon the main, And in what dark recess they sink again. What shakes the solid earth, what cause delays The summer nights, and shortens winter days— Happy the man, who, studying nature’s laws, Through known effects can trace the secret cause.”

Footnote 40:

The lines here referred to were written about eight years after Sir Isaac Newton’s death. Voltaire supposes an apotheosis of Newton to have taken place, among the planets personified by some of the deities of the heathen mythology. Thus ascribing intelligence to the stars, he considers them, by a poetical fiction, as being in the confidence of the Most High—the true God; and to those subordinate deities, or, perhaps, a fancied superior order of angelic beings, the poet makes his figurative address; which may be thus rendered in English verse:—

Ye confidents of the Most High, Ye everlasting lights! Who deck, with your refulgent fires, The scene of godlike rights! Whose wings o’erspread the glorious throne Whereon your Lord is plac’d, That Lord, by whose transcendent pow’r Your borrow’d rays are grac’d; Speak out, bright orbs of heaven’s expanse! And frankly let us know: To the exalted NEWTON’S name, Can you refuse to bow?

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Astronomy has not only engaged the attention of multitudes of illustrious men, of every age and nation, but it has been patronized by great and enlightened princes and states; cultivated by men of genius and learning, of all ranks and professions; and celebrated by historians and poets.

This charming, as well as sublime and invaluable science, has also been studied, and even practically cultivated, by many celebrated women, in modern times. There are indeed circumstances connected with this innocent and engaging pursuit, that must render it very interesting to the fair sex. Some ladies have prosecuted this object with such success, as to acquire considerable distinction in the philosophical world. While, therefore, the meritorious transactions of men are held in grateful remembrance and frequently recorded in the annals of fame, it is due to justice and impartiality, that literary, scientific, and other attainments of the gentler sex, calculated for the benefit of civil society, should be alike commemorated. Among such then, as examples, may be named the following:—

Maria Cunitia (Kunitz,) daughter of a physician in Silesia, published Astronomical Tables, so early as the year 1650.

Maria-Clara, the daughter of Eimmart and wife of of Muller, both well-known astronomers, cultivated the same science.

Jane Dumée published, in the year 1680, Conversations (or Dialogues) on the Copernican System.

Maria-Margaretta Winckelman, wife of Godfrey Kirch, an astronomer of some distinction who died in 1710, at the age of seventy-one years, worked at his Ephemerides, and carried on Astronomical Observations with her husband. This respectable woman discovered the Comet of 1702, on the 20th of April in that year: she produced, in 1712, a Work on Astronomy; and died at Berlin, in the year 1720. Her three daughters continued, for thirty years, to employ themselves in Astronomical Observations, for the Almanacks of Berlin.

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