Part 94

Some of the constellations appear to have been named, even before the time of Moses, who was born 1571 years before Christ: but, probably, most of them received their names about the time of the Argonautic expedition, which took place in the year 1263, B. C

Hesiod and Homer who were co-temporaries, or, at least, flourished nearly at the same time, that is to say, about nine centuries before the Christian era, mention several of the constellations; and, among the rest, the Bear and the Hyades: and it is noticed by Mr. Lalande, that La Condamine says the Indians on the river Amazons gave to the seven stars in the Hyades, the name of the Bull’s-head, as we do; and that Father Lasitau tells us, the Iroquois called that assemblage of stars to which we give the name of the Bear, by the same name; and named the polar star “the star that does not move.”

These are interesting facts. There is not the least resemblance, whatever, in the two constellations which have been mentioned, to the animals whose names they bear. Is it not, then, a matter of great curiosity, as well as one which may prove important in its result, to enquire, why two great tribes of uncivilized men, (supposed, by some, to be aborigines,) in the northern and southern sections of the western hemisphere, should apply the same denominations to two assemblages of stars, by which those constellations were known to Hesiod and Homer, if not earlier, and at least twenty-five hundred years before? W. B.

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As to the Arabians, though some have supposed them the first inventors of astronomy, encouraged to contemplate the heavens by the happy temperature of their climate, and the serenity of their skies, which their manner of life must likewise have contributed to render more particularly the object of their attention; yet it is said, nothing of certainty can now be found to induce us to think they had any knowledge of this science amongst them before they learned it from the writings of Ptolemy, who flourished one hundred and forty years after the birth of Christ.

But notwithstanding the pretensions of other nations, since it was the Greeks who improved geometry, probably from its first rudiments, into a noble and most useful science; and since we cannot conceive that astronomy should make any considerable progress without geometry, it is to them we appear indebted for the foundations of a science, that (to speak without a metaphor) has in latter ages reached the astonishingly distant heavens.

Amongst the Greeks, Hipparchus deserves particular notice; by an improvement of whose labours Ptolemy formed that system of astronomy which appears to have been the only one studied for ages after, and particularly (as was said before) by the Arabians; who made some improvements of their own, and, if not the inventors, were at least the preservers of astronomy. For with them it took refuge, during those ages of ignorance which involved Europe, after an inundation of northern people had swallowed up the Roman empire; where the universally prevailing corruption of manners, and false taste, were become as unfavourable to the cause of science, as the ravages of the Barbarians themselves.

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Footnote A6:

Hipparchus (of Nicæa, in Bithynia,) was a very celebrated mathematician and astronomer of antiquity. Mr. Lalande styles him the most laborious and most intelligent astronomer of antiquity, of whom we have any record; and asserts, that the true astronomy which has come down to us, originated with him. He divided the heavens into forty-eight (some say forty-nine) constellations, and assigned names to the stars. He is also said to have determined latitude and longitude and to have computed the latter from the Canaries; and he is supposed to be the first who, after Thales, calculated eclipses with some degree of accuracy: but he makes no mention of comets. Hipparchus died one hundred and twenty five years before the Christian era. W. B.

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From this time, we meet with little account of astronomical learning in Europe until Regiomontanus, and some others, revived it in the fifteenth century; and soon afterwards appeared the celebrated Copernicus, whose vast genius, assisted by such lights as the remains of antiquity afforded him, explained the true system of the universe, as at present understood. To the objection of the Aristotelians, that the sun could not be the centre of the world, because all bodies tended to the earth, Copernicus replied, that probably there was nothing peculiar to the earth in this respect; that the parts of the sun, moon and stars, likewise tended to each other, and that their spherical figure was preserved amidst their various motions, by this power; an answer that will at this day be allowed to contain sound philosophy. And when it was further objected to him, that, according to his system, Venus and Mercury ought to appear horned like the moon, in particular situations; he answered as if inspired by the spirit of prophecy, and long before the invention of telescopes, by which alone his prediction could be verified, “That so they would one day be found to appear.”

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Footnote A7:

Friar Bacon is said to have been almost the only astronomer of his age; he informs us that there were then but four persons in Europe who had made any considerable proficiency in the mathematics.

Footnote A8:

Regiomontanus was born in the year 1436, at Kœnigsberg, a town of Franconia, subject to the house of Saxe-Weimar. His real name was John Müller: but he assumed the name of Regiomontanus from that of the place of his nativity, which signifies Regius Mons.

This astronomer, who was greatly celebrated in his time, was the first, according to Lalande, who calculated good Almanacks; which he had composed for thirty successive years; viz. from 1476 to 1506. In these (which were all published at Nuremberg in 1474, two years before his death,) he announced the daily longitudes of the planets, their latitudes, their aspects, and foretold all the eclipses of the sun and moon; and these ephemerides were received with uncommon interest by all nations. After noticing these, Lalande mentions the ephemerides which are published annually at Bologna, Vienna, Berlin, and Milan; but he pronounces the Nautical Almanack, of London, to be the most perfect ephemeris that was ever published. Regiomontanus compiled several other works, which greatly promoted his reputation, He died in 1476, at the age of forty years. W. B.

Footnote A9:

See some interesting particulars respecting this great man in Lord Buchan’s account of the Tomb of Copernicus, and in the note thereto, inserted in the Appendix. W. B.

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Next follows the noble Tycho, who with great labour and perseverance, brought the art of observing the heavens to a degree of accuracy unknown to the ancients; though in theory he mangled the beautiful system of Copernicus. The whimsical Kepler, too, (whose fondness for analogies frequently led him astray, yet sometimes happily conducted him to important truths) did notable services to astronomy: and from his time down to the present, so many great men have appeared amongst the several nations of Europe, rivalling each other in the improvement of astronomy, that I should trespass on your patience were I to enumerate them. I shall therefore proceed to what I proposed in the second place, and take notice of some of the most important discoveries in this science.

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Footnote A10:

Tycho-Brahé, as Lalande remarks, was the first who, by the accuracy and the number of his observations, prepared the way for the renewal of astronomy. The theories, the tables, and the discoveries of Kepler, are founded on his observations; and Lalande thinks, that their names, after those of Hipparchus and Copernicus, ought to be transmitted with immortal honour to posterity.

Tycho was born in the year 1546, at Knudsturp in Scania in Denmark, of a noble family, which subsisted also in Sweden under the name of Brahé, and to which the marshal count Lœwendahl was allied. He died in 1601, at the age of fifty-five years.

Frederick II, king of Denmark, gave to Tycho the little island of Huen, called in Latin Venusin, towards the Sound, and about ten leagues, northward, from Copenhagen: where that prince erected for him a castle, named Uraniberg, and an observatory attached to it, completely furnished with the best instruments. Yet only fifty-one years after the death of Tycho, Mr. Huet, whose curiosity led him to visit a place so celebrated could find no vestige of the observatory. One solitary old man, who yet retained some recollection of it, told him that the tempestuous winds to which they were subject along the Sound, had demolished it. Even the name of Tycho was then unknown in that savage island, as Mr. Lalande indignantly styles it: and Mr. Picard, who was sent by the French academy, in 1671, to ascertain the exact situation of the observatory, was obliged to have the earth dug away, in order to discover its foundation. W. B.

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