fage in Plutarch, by which it appears, that it was a controverfy in his time; and Lucretius and Pliny, who oppofe this notion, as weil as St. Auguftine, all ferve as witneffes that it must have prevailed in their time. As to the proofs which the ancients brought of the fphericity of the earth, they were the very fame that are adduced by the moderns. Pliny, on this fubject, obferves, that the land which retires out of fight to perfons on the deck of a fhip, appears fill in view to thofe who are at the maft head; and thence he concludes, that the earth is round. Aristotle drew this confequence, not only from the fhadow of the earth being circular on the disk of the moon, in the time of an eclipse, but also from this circumftance, that in travelling fouth, we difcover other stars; and that thofe which we faw before, whether in the zenith, or elsewhere, change their fituation with respect to us. ferved, and do fill contribute, to confirm and fupport the conjectures of the ancients; although it has often happened, that thofe very conjectures of theirs, which are now fo univerfally received as true, have formerly been as univerfally decried. The revolution of the planets about their own axis, is another point of view in which this fubject may be confidered. What a useful aid the invention of telescopes has been to the aftronomical obfervations of the moderns, is particularly evident from this difcovery, that the planets revolve on their axis; a difcovery founded on the periodical revolution of the fpots obferved on their disk;, fo that every planet performs two revolutions, by one of which it is carried, with others, about a common centre; and by the other moves upon its axis round its own. But all that the moderns have done, in this refpect, ferves only to confirm to the ancients the glory of being the first discoverers. In this the moderns are to the ancients, what to fir Ifaac Newton were the French philofophers, all whofe labours and travels in vifiting the vicinity of the poles and the equator, to determine the figure of the earth, ferve only to confirm what fir Ifaac had thought of it, without fo much as ftirring from his closet. In the fame manner, most of our experiments have Whatever were the arguments upon which the ancients founded their theorye certain it is, they clearly apprehended, that the planets revolved upon their own axis. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantes, two celebrated Pythagoreans, intimated this truth long ago, and made ufe of a very apt comparison to convey their idea; faying, that the earth turned from welt to eaft, juft as a wheel turns upon its axis or centre. And Plato ex tended this obfervation from the earth to the other planets; according to Atticus, the Platonic, who thus explains his opinion: To that general motion which makes the planets describe. a circular course, he added another refulting from their fpherical shape, which made each of them move round its own centre, while they performed the general revolution of their course. Plotinus alfo afcribes this fentiment to Plato; for, fpeaking of him, he fays, that befide the grand circular courfe obferved by all the ftars in general, he thought they each performed another about their own centre. Cicero afcribes the fame notion to Nicetas of Syracufe, and quotes Theophraftus to warrant what he advances. Nicetas is the person whom Diogenes Laertius names Hycetas, whofe opinion was, that the celerity of the earth's motion about its own axis, and otherwife, was the only cause of the apparent revolutions of the heavenly bodies. Our fecondary planet, the moon, gave the ancients an opportunity of difplaying their penetration. They early difcovered, that it had no light of its own, but thone with that which it reflected from the fun. This, after Thales, was the fentiment of Anaxagoras and Empedocles, who thence accounted, not only for the mildness of of its fplendour, but for the imperceptibility of its heat, which our experiments confirm; for, with all the aid of burning glaffes, we have never yet found it practicable to produce the leaft effect of heat from any combination of its rays. The obfervations made by the moderns tend to perfuade us, that the moon has an atmosphere, though very rare. In a total eclipfe of the fun, there appears about the disk of the moon a glimmering radiance, paralleled to its circumference, which appears more and more extenuated, or rare, as it diverges from it. This, perhaps, is no other than an effect produced from fuch a fluid as air, which by reafon of its weight and elafticity is rather more denfe at bottom than at top. With a telescope, we may eafily difcern in the moon parts brighter and more elevated than others, which are judged to be mountains. We difcern alfo other parts lower, and not fo bright, which feem to be vallies lying between thofe mountains. And there are other parts, which reflecting lefs light, and prefenting one uniform smooth furface, are fuppofed to be large pieces of water. If the moon then has its collections of water, its atmosphere, its mountains, and its vallies, it is thence inferred, that there alfo may be rain there, and fnow, and all the other aerial commotions natural to fuch a fituation, and our idea of the wifdom and power of God intimates to us, that he may have placed creatures there to inhabit it, rather than that all this display of his skill should be a mere wafte. The ancients, who had not the aid of telescopes, fupplied the want of thofe inftruments by a vivacity of penetration; for, without the means that we have, they have deduced all the confequences that are admitted by the moderns; and difcovered long before, by the mental eye, whatever has fince been prefented to corporeal fight through the medium of telescopes. We fee, by fome fragments of theirs, in how fublime a manner (a manner worthy of the majefty of Deity) they entered into the views of the Supreme Being, in his deftination of the planets, and the multitude of ftars placed by him in the firmament. They confidered them as fo many funs, about which rolled planets of their own, fuch as in our folar fyftem. They even went farther, and maintained that thofe planets contained inhabitants, whofe natures they prefume not to defcribe, though they fuppofe them not to yield to ours either in beauty or in dignity. Orpheus is the most ancient author whofe opinion on this fubject is 'come down to us. Proclus prefents us with three verfes of that ancient philofopher, in which he pofitively afferts, that the moon was ano. ther earth, containing mountains, valleys, &c. Pythagoras, who followed Orpheus in many of his opinions, taught likewife that the moon was an earth like ours, replete with animals, whofe nature he prefumed not to defscribe, though he was perfuaded they were of a more noble and elegant kind than ours, and not liable to the fame infirmities. It would here be very easy to multiply quotations, to fhow how very common this opinion was among the ancient philofophers; but it will be fufficient to add a remarkable paffage of Stobæus, in which he gives us the opinion of Democritus concerning the nature of the moon, and the cause of the fpots which we fee upon its disk. That great philofopher imagined, that thefe fpots were no other than fhades, formed by the exceffive height of the lunar mountains, which intercepted the light from the lower parts of that planet, where the vallies were formed into what appeared to us fhades or fpots. Plutarch went farther, afferting, that vaft feas, and deep caverns, were embofomed in the moon. His conjectures are built upon the fame foundation as thofe of the moderns; for, he obferves, thofe deep and extenfive fhades that appear on the disk of of the moon, must be contained by the vaft feas it contains, which are incapable of reflecting fo vivid a light as the more folid and opake parts, or by extremely wide and deep caverns, in which the rays of the fun are abforbed, whence thofe fhades that we call the spots of the moon. And Xenophanes faid, that thofe immenfe cavities were inhabited by another race of men, who lived there just as we do on earth. Yet it appears from one place in Plutarch, that in his time, as well as of late, it was difputed by many, whether the moon yielded any exhalations or vapours, for the production of rain and the other meteors. He took part with thofe who held the negative; being perfuaded that the moon must be fo intenfely heated by the never-ceafing action of the rays of the fun upon it, that all its humidity muft be dried up, fo as to render it incapable of furnithing new vapours; whence he concluded that neither clouds, nor rains, nor winds exifted there, and, of course, neither plants nor animals. Now, this is the very reafon alleged by fuch of the moderns as oppofe the notion of the moon's being inhabited; whereas the only neceffary confequence is, that the inhabitants of that planet must be intirely different from ours, and by their conftitution fitted to fuch a clime and fuch an habitation. But however this be, it appears from this paffage, that the opinion here mentioned had partifans, even in the time of Plutarch, who were no less fertile than we are in conjectures to fupport it. The milky way, and fixed ftars, have been objects of inquiry to many philofophers. With refpect to the former of thefe (that lucid whitish zone, which is feen in the firmament among the fixed lars) the Pythagoreans held that it had once been the fun's path, and that he had left in it that trace of white which we now observe there. The Peripatetics affert ed, after Aristotle, that it was formed of exhalations, fufpended high in air. It may readily be admitted that there were miftales; but all were not miftaken in their conjectures. Democritus, without the aid of a telescope, preceded Galileo in remarking, that what we call the milky way contained in it an innumerable quantity of fixed ftars, the mixture of whofe diftant rays occafioned the whiteness which we thus denominate;' or, to exprefs it in Plutarch's words, it was the united brightness of an immense number of ftars.' The ancients were no lefs clear in their conceptions of the fixed stars than we are; for it is but a fhort while ago that the moderns adopted the ideas of thofe great mafters on this fubject, after having rejected them during many ages. It would now be deemed an abfurdity in philofophy, to doubt of thofe ftars being funs like ours, each having planets of their own, which revolve around them, and form various folar fyftems, more or less resembling that of ours. And this notion of a plurality of worlds was generally inculcated by the Greek philofophers. Plutarch, after having given an account of it, fays, he was fo far from finding fault with it, that he thought it highly probable there had been, and were, like this of ours, an innumerable, though not abfolutely infinite multitude of worlds, wherein, as well as here, were land and water, invefted by fky.' Anaximenes was one of the first who taught this doctrine. He believed that the ftars were immenfe maffes of fire, around which certain terreftrial globes, imperceptible to us, accomplished their periodical revolutions. It is evident, that by thefe terrestrial globes, turning round those. maffes of fire, he meant planets, fuch as ours, fubordinate to their own fun, and forming with it a folar fyftem. Such were the luminous ideas of the ancients on this fublime fubject, on which fome further confiderations fhall be given in a future paper. On NATURAL and ARTIFICIAL BEAUTY. The teeming mother, anxious for her race, AN agreeable author afks, at what time a woman ught to give over thinking of her beauty? To this important queftion he has given us no anfwer, and I do not find myf if difpofed to make the attempt, unless, from what follows, any fair readers can pick out fomething like an opinion. Certainly, if we were to judge of the matter from the conduct of many ladies, and the fe of rank and eaimation too, or if we were to allow them to be judges of the subject, we should be apt to pronounce that no woman ought to give over thinking of her beauty, while he has power to think at all, and that her charms and her life ought to end at the fame time. We fhall, likewife, be inclined to favour this opinion, if we confider, not only the conduct of the ladies abovementioned, but alfo that of thote gen tlemen who make it the fludy of their Hives to provide the ladies with what they are fuppofed to fet the highest vale on.-1 mean the whole tribe of gentlemen who deal in cofmetics, whose advertisements crowd our papers, and who are fo vain to be diftinguified as the fupporters and reftorers of beauty, that they frequently quarrel among themselves about the merit of an invention, and entertain (fome will fay pehr the public with long controverts on the fubject of a pematum or a wash. Thefe, however, are controveries which I do not think of the very loweft nature, and the man who fludies them, and be comes a partizan in the originality of a new lotion or toothpowder, may perhaps be to the full as well employed as fome whole controve fies and difputes appear in their own eyes to be of much more importance. VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES. The queftion in the beginning of this paper contains in it the fignificant monofyllable ought, and I am now ftating what the practice is, with a view, if poffible, to ascertain what it ought to be. I proce.d, therefore, to affert, upon authority which will not be eafily overturned, that many ladies of the kingdom of Great Britain do attempt to preferve their beauty to the most advanced periods of life, by the application of certain paints, washes and lotions, calculated, as is fuppofed, to produce that great and important effest. And it is, moreover, equally certain that many of the faid ladies do begin to call in the afiftance of the faid paints, wafhes and lotions, at a very early time of life, and long before nature, in the common courie of her progrefs, has begun to decay and to want the help of art, as if artificial flowers were as neceffary in July, as in December. Two feparate confiderations arise from this statement of facts. First; we ought to confider that nature has given to all women a face of fome kind or other, handsome or ordinary. (for I hate the word ugly) Secondly; It often happens that the finest face becomes, in the courfe of a certain number of years, fo much the prey of time or difeafe, as to feem to require the help of art to repair its loffes. Now whether this be pollible or not, is a very ferious question; it becomes us very gravely to enquire whether it is in the power of man to give beauty where nature has denied it, or to renew a complexion where nature has thought proper to efface it? Although I am decidedly of opinion that this queftion ought to be answered in the negative, yet I shall proceed ftep by step ftep in the difcuffion of it, that to fome I may not seem too harsh, or to others, too precip tate. It is not a matter which requires a long train of logical inferences; a few acknowledged, and very pl in facts, will help us on to perfect convict on. First, then, I hold it to be a maxim, that the utmost ingenuity of all the men now in the world, and the combined wifdom of all the men that ever were in the world, when put together, is not fufficient to emulate nature by making the most infignificant of her works. All the Chritian or Jewish Solomons, all the pagan philofophers, the Greek and Roman legiflators, fstatesmen and wifemen, all the Newtons, Bacons, and Boyles, of more modern times, and a thousand others equally famous for orig nal kill, and wonderful invention, are as incapable to make a blade of grafs, an ear of corn, a grain of fand, or the twentieth part of the most despicable infect, as the verieft clown that ever begged his bread for want of brains to earn it. If this be allowed, and (although it has been often afferted) I have as yet feen no contradiction of it, can we fuppofe that fo complex a part of the human body as the face, is to be made otherwife than nature has formed it, merely by the application of red and white paint? Beauty chiefly depends on the formation of the features, fometimes on the lure or colour of the eyes, and often on the pleafing fhape the features take in the actions of fpeaking, or imiling, and in the expreffion of the pallions. What will cofmeties do here? But, I fhall be told, that the chief ufe of them is to repair the decays of the complexion, and rettore those roles, that mixture of red and white which conftitutes true beauty of complexion. Beneficial, indeed, were cofmetics, if they effected this purpofe, and I fhould be the first to propofe a ftatue to be ere@ed to every perfumer in London who had the merit of inventing what the decrees of Providence have vifibly declared cannot be done. But the mistake here, I apprehend, proceeds from an inattention to the real beauty of complexion as given by nature. If this depended merely on putting an oval of red paint on each cheek, and colouring the rest of the face white, every motaer Shipton might be a Venus, and a pale complexion would be as fca ce as a prodigy. But whoever attentively obferves nature's finest works, and may therefore prefume to be a connciffeur (as any man can be who has eyes) will readily agree that the beauty of the fineft numan face does not depend on any regular diftribution of colours, fuch as could be laid down by rule, but on the perpetual variety of hues and tints, which arifes from every variety of expression in the mind. A face always of the fame colour, and without any more variation than is discovered in the colours of a painting on the wail, would foon appear as inanimate and unattractive. Still life is abhorret to the principles of beauty, and when we fay of a beautiful girl that the is a piece of fill life, every one knows that the latter character completely destroys the former, and deprives her of all attraction. But if we make a complexion of our own fancy with the pencil, we are fure to make fuch a one as cannot obey nature's motions and impulfes. We may give a perpetual bla, and here the character (like a clock that ftands) will be right once a day, at lealt; but where is that delicate intermixture of paleuefs and alternate flash, vifible when perfect, but imperceptible in its progrefs, which exprett's fo many tender and endearing affections 28 rivet us to the face which betrays them? Where is that change of colour, without which a lady mull look stupid and inanimate, and hear with equal indifference an intult or a compliment, a tale of forrow or of joy ? I truit I am speaking the fentiments of the better part of our fex. We do not love fuch a face. Shaktpeare |