The science of aftronomy must be fuppofed in a bad state when the Ptolomaic fystem was confidered as the true one. Long after the revival of the system of Copernicus, that of Ptolomy still held its ground, and was believed by fo learned a man as Dr. Browne, and not disbelieved by Milton; who, in the converfation between the Angel and Adam, balances between the two theories, not for the reason Addison affigns, but because that of Copernicus was not firmly established.

The true system of the universe was at laft confirmed by Sir Ifaac Newton, Dr. Halley, with fome other contemporary astronomers, and is daily receiving additional ftrength. Great difcoveries have been lately made, and greater still are expected from the vast power of modern telescopes. Could Galileo have imagined what improvements another Age would make in his fimple perfpective glafs, it might have caft a gleam of light

over the horrors of his doleful prison, into which he was thrown for being wifer than the barbarifm of the Age would admit.* Horrox triumphed in seeing first the tranfit of Venus, but he never imagined that the folar fyftem would have been extended beyond the orb of Saturn --but why do I revert to the time of this ingenious aftronomer? Our present philofophers as little suspected the existence of the Georgium Sidus § as their predeceffors.

What

* 66 Virgilius, furnamed Solivagus, a native of Ireland, and Bishop of Saltzburg, in the 8th century, ventured to affert the heretical doctrine of the Antipodes, and of other planets befides the earth; for which the Pope pronounced his anathema-Galileo then was not the first philofopher whom the Court of Rome perfecuted."

WATKINSON.

§ Perhaps Dr. Herschel had just read the Rape of the Lock, and chofe "to inscribe amid the

ftars

What farther difcoveries are referved for the Golden-Age may be owing to the late-invented inftruments for observation; which feem to promise a future intimate acquaintance with the ftarry heavens, in comparison of which our present knowledge may be confidered as ignorance.

The relinquishing false opinions always accompanies the progrefs of real knowledge. Aftronomy has advanced, and Aftrology has retreated-however it held its ground until Butler firft laughed it

out

ftars Great George's name"-but, without intending the least disrespect to the King, or to his aftronomer, I may be permitted to remark, that all Europe is diffatisfied with the appellation. In the firft place, Sidus is not the Latin word which anfwers to our idea of a planet.-Again—the rest of the planets have all names of the fame houseMercury, Venus, &c. &c. and the new one might not improperly have taken that of Neptune—if this was rejected, it might have been named from the difcoverer-indeed the propriety of being so named, is evident from foreign aftronomers always terming it the planet of Herschel.

out of countenance in his Hudibras,* and the wits of Queen Anne's reign continued the laugh with fo much fuccefs, that it never more can fhew its face in an enlightened country.

Scarce any great undertaking in the last century was begun without confulting the stars. The immediate ufe which Charles the first made of a thousand pounds fent him at Brentford, was to fee Lilly the aftrologer to tell him his fortune" I advised him," fays the Sage, "to march eastward, but he marched weftward, and all the world knows the confequence." In Perfia this art is still

in

* See the adventure of the Knight with Sidrophel, and numberless other open and covert attacks on aftrology dispersed in various parts of the poem. Butler had too much original sense of his own, to join in with popular belief, unless it had truth for its support.

in its full vigour-but Perfia is not the land of knowledge.

As the sciences mutually affift each other, fo ignorance is never demolished in one instance, but it is put to flight in others. With astrology departed magic and witchcraft; and all the apparitions which terrified our forefathers are vanished for ever!

Our knowledge of metaphyfics before Locke was but little. Whether he ex-· hausted the subject, or whether new light has been thrown upon it by Hartly, Beattie, Priestley, and others, can never be determined, unlefs the fcience itself was capable of fomething like demonftration. Perhaps we may confider the old writers as more learned, and the moderns more natural. We agree with Locke because we are afraid to differ from him; but we join in opinion with Beattie, because he seems to have brought

down