comets, and satellites, in the same manner in which each planet draws its satellites along with him in his motion round the sun. O SUN!

Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen

Shines out thy Maker!

The other motion is a revolution upon his axis which is completed in about twenty-six days, as appears obviously by paying attention to the macula and faculæ, or spots upon his surface, which first make their appearance on the eastern extremity, and then, by degrees, come forwards toward the middle, and so pass on till they reach the western edge, and then disappear. When they have been absent for nearly the same period of time which they were visible, they appear again as at first, finishing their entire circuit in 27 days, 12 hours, 20 minutes. Of these spots, the dark ones are called "maculæ," to distinguish them from the others, which are of a brighter appearance than the rest of the sun's surface, and which have obtained the name of "faculæ." A spot has been seen so large, as to be equal to 26,000 miles, or more, which is more than three times the diameter of our earth.

Concerning the nature of these spots, there have been various opinions entertained, by different persons, which (as we study brevity) we shall wave, and confine ourselves, as more congenial with our plan, to a few observations, extracted from Dr. Herschell's opinion. The sun, according to Dr. H. is, like the planets, an opaque body, but surrounded by an atmosphere (which, he thinks, is not less than 1843, nor more than 2765 miles in height), of a phosphoric nature, composed of varions transparent and elastic fluids, by the decomposition of which, light is produced, and lucid appearances formed of different degrees and intensity. This indefatigable investigator of the heavenly phenomena has, moreover, assigned very forcible reasons for concluding, that, the opinion commonly received, of the sun's being a real body of fire, is futile and erroneous. The doctor even goes so far as to assert, with much probability, that, the sun is, in reality, an inhabitable world!

t

It is remarkable, that, whilst some of the ancients supposed the sun to be the clearest image of his maker," without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," others, from Psalm xix. 4" In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun," imagined, the sun to be the seat of future blessedness; a Mr. Swinden, among the moderns, however, endeavours to prove that hell is seated in the sun, chiefly pleading that," this is the grand repository of fire; that its horrible face, viewed by a telescope, suits the description given of the burning lake; and that, being the centre of the system, it might be properly said, that wicked men were cast down into it." But these are mere hypotheses we know the sun to be a glorious luminary, and it becomes us to rejoice in the light and

heat which he dispenses, and by which the earth is most essentially benefited; and is one of the many irrefragable proofs, that the universe could not (as atheists assert) be jumbled together by chance; but that the whole must have been formed by an allwise, all-powerful, and adorable Creator! It has been remarked, that, "If the sun were larger, he would set the earth on fire; if smaller, he would leave it frozen if he were nearer to us, we should be scorched to death; if farther from us, we should not be able to live for want of heat."

STACKHOUSE'S History of the Bible.

This month was under the protection of Diana. The Emperor Commodus gave it the name of Exuperatorious, but this name it retained no longer than Commodus himself was in existence.

On the first, there was a feast in honour of Jupiter, and games in the circus. The Neptunalia, dedicated to Neptune, began on the fifth, and the sports lasted during eight days. Arbours were constructed of branches, on the banks of the Tiber, in which the Romans diverted themselves. A bull was sacrificed to Neptune. The seventh was one of the three days of the year in which the temple, called Mundus Patens, was opened. On the thirteenth was the Cœna Capitolina, or supper given to Jupiter in the capitol. It was the custom of the Romans, on some occasions, to give entertainments to their deities, and to provide them with seats, and act as if they were really present. This kind of feast, which was called Lectisternium, was intended to propitiate them. On the fifteenth, popular games began in the circus, which lasted during three days. The pontiffs had a supper on the nineteenth, in honour of Cybele. The Liberalia were held on the twenty-first, and were devoted to Bacchus. This day was a day, not merely of gaiety, but of the utmost licentiousness, Libations of honey were poured out to the god, because he was believed to have taught the use of it, and a camel or a goat was

sacrificed to him, the latter, because of its being destructive to the vines. The ceremonies and sacrifices of this festival were performed by females, crowned with ivy. On the twenty-second, offerings were made to Pluto and Proserpine. The Brumalia began on the twenty-fourth, and continued for several days. They were instituted by Romulus, in honour of Bacchus, and during the continuance of them he used to give entertainments to the senate. The mortuary sacrifices, in the Forum Boarium, took place on the twenty-seventh.

The sun, during this month, is in the sign Scorpio and Sagittarius.

WESTMINSTER-HALL.

(From Wine and Walnuts.)

The little difficulty with which that bustling see-er of sights, Old Memory, forces a passage through the crowd of events of sixty years, is manifest by the ease with which my crazy reminiscence can make its way back to a scene, which is now again preparing for an audience of, at least, ninety-nine in a hundred, who witnessed not the last performance-one of no less importance than the coronation of a new sovereign.

Yet how long, how many ages has it seemed to us few remaining greybeards, as we have travelled onwards, step by step, from the year 1761, when our late venerable king, then in the bloom and vigour of youth, and his virtuous consort, yet younger than himself, were seated beneath that Gothic roof, which had witnessed a like awful ceremony with so many sovereigns in the regal chair.-Yes! how long, counting all the mighty changes that had intervened since then-and now, when I am dipping my pen in the ink, to tell this " Old Man's Tale."

What trifles seem to burst the lengthened chain of life, and bring again together the links that form each end! The air of a nursery-ballad, or the scent of a particular shrub or flower that pleased in youth, will strike the senses unawares, and make the sage, as it were, shake the hoar frost from his pate, and feel another spring-make him believe himself once more a child, before the dreaded period of his second childishness.

Thus it was with me, but a few days since, when, after being imprisoned by the long north-east, the vane kindly pointing to the south, I ventured out to take a peep at what was doing in Westminster-Hall. The smell of the new timber, the loud hammering of the busy carpenters, the raised platform, the long galleries all I heard, all I saw, all I felt, verily appeared but a

continuation of the same preparations I had witnessed in my youth, in the summer of 1761.

I turned me round, but all were strangers there. The banquet over, and all who graced the royal feast; Princes, Peers, and noble Knights, and Ladies fair-all gone! and he, the King, for whom the gorgeous banqueting was made, I have lived to see proceed through every stage of life with dignity, and in awe of heaven-even until old age overtook him. That age! mysterious heaven! for which the righteous monarch was reserved, when the dim lamp of life wasted its remaining incense upon the sacred altar, within that living sepulchre! his unconscious self!

SAGACITY OF A BEAR.

A nobleman, in the province of Novogored, being out hunting with several other noblemen, perceived in a forest a bear, with a muzzle on, tied to a tree: the animal appeared to be very tame, and, by his wailings, indicated that something particular was the matter with him. The nobleman gave orders to untie him from the tree, on which the bear, led by a countryman with a rope, immediately ran to a neighbouring spot, and began very eagerly to scratch up the ground-the creature only wanted language to show, that something nearly concerning him was there buried. The possibility of this was evident to the nobleman, and he ordered his people to dig up the spot pointed out by the bear, which consisted of very loose earth. To the no little astonishment and horror of all present, they soon found two dead bodies covered with blood, which appeared to have been very recently interred, whose wounds the bear, with a lamentable howling, began to lick, making the persons who stood, around understand, by a very singular look, that they should remove the bodies. They made a bier of young trees, on which they laid the bodies, to convey them to the next village. The bear, still led by a peasant, goes first, and seems to follow, like a dog, a scent that he has of the murderers of his masters. He is suffered to take his own way, and they very soon reach a village on the skirts of the forest, when he halts at the door of a cottage, and his former wailing is changed to a dreadful roaring. This induces the nobleman to call together the male inhabitants, and place them in a certain order, thinking, perhaps, by the help of the bear, to discover the murderers, as of course all deny any knowledge of the deed. The people, belonging to the hut before which the bear stopped, also came up from another side; and scarcely had they, according to the nobleman's desire, placed themselves with the others, when the bear, with a dreadful howl, rushed upon two

tall fellows, whom only the animal's muzzle saved from his fury. He was removed from them by force, but the persons so singularly accused were immediately subjected to a strict examination. They confessed all; the two bear leaders, who had money about them, had been murdered by them in the forest, and hastily buried; the hunting horn of the party having made them fly precipitately, leaving the bear tied to the tree, by which the discovery of the murder was effected in a manner so strange. The criminals were delivered into the hands of justice, and brought to that punishment which they so justly deserved.

INHUMAN ATROCITY.

A few days ago, a young woman, residing at Sunny-brae, parish of Saline, had an illegitimate child, and in order to avoid the shame which an exposure of her situation might have drawn upon her, barbarously murdered the innocent infant in a manner at which human nature shudders. The unhappy mother lived under the same roof with an old woman, whose apartment was separated only by a thin partition, on whom she called to come and make her a warm drink, but prohibited her from preparing it at the fire of the room they were in, saying, that she had just heaped on fuel to warm the house, which she was unwilling to have touched or broken down. The old woman was surprised on finding something very disagreeable issuing from the fire, and, after repeatedly interrogating the sick female, without obtaining any satisfactory answer, turned up the coals, and, to her unspeakable horror, found in the midst of them, the halfconsumed remains of the hapless victim of the unnatural parent's inhumanity.