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expression, "the access to the nubęculæ on all sides is through a desert." No doubt, then, can remain that the nebulæ seen in the Magellanic Clouds are within the same region of space as the small stars seen along with them.

Now let the reader carefully note the significance of these facts. The reasoning by which that significance is educed is exceedingly simple; but the result is of the utmost importance.

Each of the Magellanic Clouds, as we have said, is nearly round. Now when an object appears round the most probable opinion we can form respecting the object's shape is that it is globular. An object which is not globular may appear circular, as, for instance, an egg, a roller, or the like, looked at endwise, or a coin looked at in a direction square to its flat surfaces. But we know that if an egg, or a roller, or a coin, were held in a random position, the chances would be against that position being such that the egg, or roller, or coin would present its round aspect, so to speak. And clearly, therefore, if we know nothing about a certain object but that it appears round, we must accept as probable the belief that it is globular.* This conclusion, which would

So

* We have an instance of this sort of reasoning in the case of the moon. We know nothing certainly about the shape of the moon regarded as a solid, for we only see her under one aspect. far as abstract possibilities are concerned, the moon, as seen under certain aspects from Venus, might present the shape of an egg, or even of a diamond. Still we conclude that the moon is a globe, because she presents the aspect which a globe, and a globe only, presents in all positions. (Lately astronomers have indeed seen reason for questioning this conclusion; but our present argument is not affected by the circumstance.) But now let us conceive a case directly illustrating the argument dealt with above. Suppose a certain fruit of an unknown nature is held in such a posi⚫ tion, and at such a distance, that all we can recognize of its aspect is its seeming outline, and

that this outline is round. We should regard it

as probable that the fruit is globular. Now if a second specimen were similarly held up (in a random position) and seen to be also round, we should be very strongly confirmed in our opinion, and the mathematical theory of probabilities shows us that this naturally deduced conclusion is a just one. For instance, suppose-to use our ordinary modes of expression-that the odds are three to one against an egg-shaped fruit appearing round (under such circumstances as are dealt with

above), then the odds against two such egg-shaped fruits appearing round would be no less than fifteen

to one.

be justly arrived at in the case of one object, is much strengthened when two objects of the same general aspect, but quite independent of each other, both appear to be round. We cannot reasonably doubt, then, that the region of space occupied by each Magellanic Cloud approaches to the globular form.

But if the Magellanic Clouds are globular objects, we can tell the relative limits of distance between which all objects in either cloud must lie. To illustrate our meaning, let us take the sun's globe. One point of that globe is nearer to us than any other, and one point is farther away than any other. The nearest point is that which appears to lie at the centre of the solar disc, the farthest would appear to occupy exactly the same position, if the sun were a transparent globe. Now we can tell how much farther relatively the latter point is than the former, without at all considering the actual distance of the sun. The sun might be only a thousand miles away, or a thousand billions of miles, and yet the relative distances of these two points would be the same. As a matter of fact, if the distance of the nearest point of the sun's globe is called one hundred, then the distance of the farthest is slightly less than a hundred and one. reasoning applies to each of the MagelPrecisely the same lanic Clouds, only the relative distances are not the same as in the sun's case, because the Magellanic Clouds both cover a much larger portion of the sky than the sun does. In the case of the larger Magellanic Cloud, it is easily shown that if the distance of the nearest part of that globeshaped cluster be called nine, the distance of the farthest part must be about ten. In the case of the smaller, the distance of the farthest part is yet more nearly equal to that of the nearest part.

We have, then, this altogether unexpected result, that, so far as the nebulæ in the Magellanic Clouds are concerned, we have not to deal with galaxies external to our system, but with objects mixed up with stars of the eighth magnitude—that is, with stars which had always been regarded by astronomers as lying far nearer to us than the outskirts of the star-system. "It must be taken as a demonstrated fact," says Sir John Herschel, "that stars of the seventh or eighth magnitude" (that is, stars only just beyond the limits of the un

aided vision) "and irresolvable nebula" (that is, objects which had been supposed to lie hundreds of times farther away than the outermost bounds of our own starsystem) "may co-exist within limits of distance not differing in proportion more than as nine to ten, a conclusion which must inspire some degree of caution in admitting as certain many of the consequences which have been rather strongly dwelt upon" in the treatment of the elder Herschel's researches.

Now it may seen highly venturesome to press this conclusion more earnestly than Sir John Herschel himself has seemed willing to do. Yet we must not forget that it was a peculiarity of Sir John Herchel's mode of dealing with such matters, that he did not press facts home very strongly. He had not, indeed, a firm grasp of facts. Again and again in his published works we find him reasoning in absolute forgetfulness-or as if in absolute forgetfulness-of facts he had already demonstrated or admitted. He differed in this most markedly from his father, who never once let go his grasp of a fact. Both these great men had a light hold of theories, but the elder Herschel had at the same time a vice-like hold of facts,-Sir John Herschel not unseldom let them slip through his fingers.

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We therefore confidently urge the "demonstrated fact" spoken of by Sir John Herschel, as a conclusion which must inspire" something more than "caution in admitting" the consequences which had been supposed to flow from the elder Herschel's studies of such irresolvable nebulæ as he did not consider to be gaseous. Sir W. Herschel had judged that multitudes of these nebulæ must be external Milky Ways; the "demonstrated fact" is that a large group of such nebula happening to be so placed that their distance (relatively to isolated stars) can be estimated, are not external galaxies, but much nearer to us than many parts of our own galaxies. In the only cases in which we can judge, these star-cloudlets are found not to be external star-systems; is not this a ground for something more than caution as to the theory that in the other cases, where we have no means of judging, such star-cloudlets are certainly external starsystems? Take any really parallel case and the answer to this question will be obvious. Suppose a botanist had asserted

his belief that all the plants presenting certain characteristic features were poisonous, no evidence beyond the existence of those features being at the time available, and that at length some person made actual experiment on ten or twelve orders of plants having such features, and found that they certainly were not poisonous-would not this demonstrated fact dispose entirely of the reasoning, however ingenious it might be, on which the general theory of the poisonous nature of such plants had been supposed to be established? Would it not be a fair inference that the untried orders were at least probably innocuous? And would it not be thought strange if a botanist, commenting on the discovery that all the as yet tried orders of plants having certain characteristics were innocuous, were to say, "This demonstrated fact must inspire some degree of caution in admitting as certain the conclusion that the remaining orders of such plants are poisonous." We yield to none in our respect for the great astronomer whose loss science is now deploring. We entertain most strongly the opinion that he was far the greatest astronomer of our time; but truth compels us to say that in his mode of dealing with demonstrated facts, and especially in this particular instance, he was, to say the least, not so happy as his father. He seems almost to have regretted to see certain questions pass beyond the field of controversy into the domain of the known.

But, after all, how aptly this "demonstrated fact" of Sir John Herschel's fits in with the work of his father! When we note how the views of the elder Herschel had been gradually modified, and the course on which the progression of his theories had led him, we see that the fact discovered by the younger Herschel was only somewhat in advance of the point reached by the father, but lies strictly in the direction along which he had been progressing up to the very close of his career. Sir W. Herschel had modified his views about unequal double stars-concluding that the fainter orb is physically associated with the brighter one, instead of lying far beyond it. He had modified his views as to star-groups of various order. He had given up the idea that our star-system can be gauged-regarding the great cloud-masses of the Milky Way as real clustering aggregations of stars, instead of depths extending far out

into space and owing their seeming richness only to such extension. He had come to regard many star clusters as part and parcel of the Milky Way, and large numbers of nebulæ as vaporous masses lying far within its limits. It seems impossible to question how he, at least, would have regarded the discovery made by his son. He would have felt, we conceive, that so far as the evidence went, the sole remaining objects which could till then be regarded as external galaxies, must no longer be so regarded, that these, like so many objects which he had himself dealt with, must be looked upon as among the wonders of our own star-depths. Nor do

we think that in arriving at this conclusion, in making this further advance along the road which he had already traversed so far, he would have judged that he was adopting views in any respect less wonderful or less awe-inspiring than those grand, yet mistaken, theories, in which hundreds of other Milky Ways had figured. On the contrary he would have felt that in obtaining an enhanced estimate of the extent, variety, and vitality of our own star-system, we were at the same time being led to form nobler opinions as to the myriads of other star-systems which doubtless exist, though, as yet, no telescope has revealed them to our contemplation.

St. Paul's,
WAR.

I STOOD by night upon a reeking plain,
Among stark stiffened hecatombs of slain,
Who blankly stared into the sullen skies
With glassy, sightless, widely-open eyes.

The night was moonless, dense with stormful cloud,
And muffled all, nor aught to sight allowed,
Save in large livid lightning's ghastly glare
Over the dead men with their awful stare.
Upon a rising ground some ruins riven

Of a burnt village, whence the dwellers driven
Fled from a ravening fire with ne'er a home,
Stand in the cold flame desolate and dumb.

Some curl in attitudes of mortal anguish,
Some with a burning thirst low moaning languish
In their own life-blood, helpless underneath
A heavy horror that hath ceased to breathe.
This form that feels hath hair and beard of grey,
The overlying corse fair curls; but they

Are marred with crimson: this was a fair boy,
Stay of a widowed mother, and her joy;

A tender girl awaits the comely youth,

To whom is plighted all her maiden truth :
These two, late locked in a death-grapple wild—
Might they not be a father and his child,
Lying together very still and mild ?

While many a fearful formless mangled thing,
That once was human, blends with littering
Of tumbril-wheel, of cannon-carriage wrack,
Rifle with sword, and soldier's haversack.

But what are those portentous Phantoms tall
That rise before my spirit to appal?
One rides upon a pale collossal horse,
Which, with its head low, sniffs before a corse
And shakes with terror; but the rider swart,
Of supernatural height, of regal port,
Inhales the tainted air with nostrils wide,
And face hard-set in a right royal pride.

One strong red hand a blade, that he has bathed
In a warm living heart, holds reeking; swathed
With giant folds imperially red

His huge mailed body, on the grizzly head
A brazen helm, he dark surveys the dead;
Dilate with cruel unwholesome arrogance
The dictatorial form, the countenance
Swollen with glutted vengeance, things unsweet
As fumes that bloat yon corpses at his feet!

Whence hath the robe drunk purple ?-there is hung
A collar of torn hearts that he hath wrung
About his neck, for royal collar slung—

Chains of wrought gold that blaze with many a gem
In snaky twine contorted over them :

His martial plume a swath of foodless grain,
Trodden, or scorched, or sodden with late rain.
Tear-blotted letters from far homes are strown
Under his horse-hoofs, or inanimate blown
Of gusty winds, the words upon them traced
Nearly, like lives of those who wrote, effaced.
He looks the incarnation of old War,
Resembling an imperial conqueror.

Low thunder with rare intermission growled,
Wherein were mingled cries of wolves that howled:
I saw one straining, gaunt and fiery-eyed,

Held by the king in leash: his awful side

It sprung anon away from fiercely hounded,

And woe is me! who witnessed where it bounded

A little child in sad astonishment

I had beheld, who with a woman went :
She sought distracted on the fearful plain
One special soldier among all the slain—
That famished wolf was hounded on the pair,
And with fire-fangs it healed a lorn despair!

An Empire floats a banner,
Sable, and white, and red,

Dyed with rapine and famine and plague,

And blood of the innocent dead!

Black with pestilence, white with famine, red with the innocent dead!

Yet a more hideous Phantom than the other

Leaned on the War-shape like its own twin brother.

A wan blue mist it seemed to emanate

From where the dead most thickly congregate,

A crawling exhalation, yet anon

A lank tall body with the grave-clothes on:
It trailed and sloped o'er many miles of dead,
Until it reached with a most fearful head
The bosom of the warrior on the horse,
There leaned fraternal like a month-old corse :
Nay, somewhat otherwise; rather, methought,
It wore aspect like one most loathsome fraught
With such disease as by beleagured Metz
Some saw who passed among the lazarettes.
Surely this was incarnate Pestilence!
Yet as I shrank with shuddering from thence,
It wore a face, pale history shall remember
For his who gagged his country one December.

It held in skeleton semblance of a hand
A distaff broken for symbol of command.
Not the Eagle, but the Vulture,
Wheels above him-screaming now:
"I will yield my foul sepulture
To the murdered men below!"
Hoarsely croaks a carrion crow:
"Thou who wert a Pestilence :
Rot abhorred in impotence !"

RODEN NOEL.

February, 1871.

St. Paul's.

A FESTA IN VENICE.

66
BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SACRISTAN'S HOUSEHOLD.”

Most of us have felt, at first sight of some long famous spot, scene, or building, that slight chill of disappointment which testifies to the discrepancy between fact and fancy. Later, in most cases, the disappointment wears off, and we learn to admire as we learn to understand. But there are still in this Europe of ours a few places the reality of whose beauty outstrips expectation, and where we have but to let our eyes drink in the loveliness spread out before them, to be satisfied utterly.

Such a place is Venice. Most exquisite, surely, of all cities made with hands! Many Italian cities are poetic, many are pathetic-as Ferrara, and the silent, sunflooded Pisa; but which of them unites with the poetic beauty of tangible marble, and intangible memories of the past, the ineffable pathos that broods upon the great waters--the solemn sadness of the sea? None save the Queen of the Adriatic, Venice the Incomparable!

And yet she is far from being gloomy or dreary. Those who saw her in her holiday garb on the 2d of July, 1871, will own that no spectacle more serenely gay, more softly bright, was ever presented to them. On that day Venice, in common with many sister cities, celebrated the accomplished fact of the transfer of the Italian capital to Rome.

The present writer pretends to no power of political vivisection. He can but paint the surface life of that 2d of July in Venice, and offers the following little water-color sketch emboldened by the knowledge that the picture is a faithful one as far as it goes.

The July sun rose up gloriously from the Lagoon into a cloudless sky, and flushed the marble pallor of beautiful

Venice, and sparkled in the restless waters, and brightened the countless banners of the Italian tricolor, which fluttered from nearly every window and house-top. All the city had blossomed into red, white, and green.

And above all bent the arch of intensely blue Italian summer sky. "A fine festa at last!" said one to another, with a short sigh of relief, and a smiling glance round the horizon. There had been cold and rain and sharp winds during the preceding month, and the saturnine had predicted foul weather for the 2d, and even the sanguine had trembled a little. But lo! the day was perfect, from beginning to end; and the most determined grumbler could find nothing worse to say than that it was very hot in the sunshine—a truism to which no one actuated by the prevailing holiday spirit deigned to pay the compliment of a retort.

It was not the tricolor alone that flouted the breeze. (There was a breeze, let the grumblers say what they might!) Almost all the little trading vessels moored at. the stone quay called the Riva de Schiavoni sported their bunting. A little removed--being of imposing bulk amongst the sinaller craft-lay two English steamers, from the " coaly Tyne?" No trace of their black cargo was to be seen. They looked as trim and smart as the best. One was dressed with gay flags up to the mast-head, and both displayed the union-jack. Then there was a rich, solemn-looking, crimson banner, bearing the crescent, which flew above a tiny, picturesque vessel, whose Albanian crew, grave-eyed, with white or red fez, baggy Turkish breeches, and bare, knotty legs, went leisurely about their work on deck under a sail-cloth awning.

What a boundless richness and variety

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