Great VASCO thrill'd with reverential awe, And rapt with keen defire, the wonder faw. The goddess markt the language of his eyes, And here, fhe cried, thy largest wish suffice. Great nature's fabric thou doft here behold,

Th' etherial pure, and elemental mould,

In pattern fhewn complete, as nature's God
Ordain'd the world's great frame, his dread abode ;
For every part the Power Divine pervades,

The fun's bright radiance and the central shades.
Yet let not haughty reason's bounded line
Explore the boundless God, or where define,
Where in Himself in uncreated light,

(While all his worlds around feem wrapt in night,)
He holds his loftieft ftate. By primal laws.
Imposed on nature's birth, Himself the cause,
By her own ministry through every maze
Nature in all her walks unseen he sways.

Thefe fpheres behold; the first in wide embrace
Surrounds the leffer orbs of various face;

The

He holds his loftieft ftate-Called by the old philofophers and school divines the Sensorium of the Deity.

P Thefe fpheres behold.. -According to the Peripatetics the universe confifted of eleven spheres inclosed within each other, as Fanfhaw has familiarly expreffed it by a fimile which he has lent our author. The first of these fpheres, he fays,

The Empyrean this, the holieft heaven

To the pure fpirits of the bleft is given:
No mortal eye its fplendid rays may bear,
No mortal bofom feel the raptures there.
The earth in all her fummer pride array'd
To this might feem a drear fepulchral shade.
Unmoved it stands: within its fhining frame,
In motion swifter than the lightning's flame,
Swifter than fight the moving parts may spy,
Another sphere whirls round its rapid sky.
Hence motion 9 darts its force, impulfive draws,
And on the other orbs impreffes laws:

The

In their accounts of this first mentioned, but eleventh sphere, which they called the Empyrean, or Heaven of the Bleft, the difciples of Aristotle, and the Arab Moors, gave a loose to all the warmth of imagination. And feveral of the Christian fathers applied to it the defcriptions of heaven which are found in the Holy Scripture.

Hence motion darts its force. This is the tenth sphere, the primum mobile of the ancient fyftem. To account for the appearances of the heavens, the Peripatetics afcribed double motion to it. While its influence drew the other orbs from east to west, they fuppofed it had a motion of its own from weft to caft. To effect this, the ponderous weight and interposition of the ninth sphere, or crystalline heaven, was neceffary. The ancient aftronomers obferved that the stars fhifted their places. This they called the motion of the crystalline heaven, expreffed by our poet at the rate of one pace during two hundred folar years. The famous Arab aftronomer Abulhasan, in his work entitled Meadows of Gold, calculates the revolution of this sphere to confift of 49,000 of our years. But modern discoveries have not only corrected this calculation*, but have alfo afcertained the reafon of the apparent motion

However deficient the aftronomy of Abulhafan may be, it is nothing to the calculation of his prophet Mohammed, who tells his difciples, that the ftars were each about the bigness of an house, and hung from the sky on chains of gold.

The fun's bright car attentive to its force

Gives night and day, and shapes his yearly courfe;
Its force ftupendous asks a pond'rous sphere

To poife its fury and its weight to bear :

Slow moves that pond'rous orb; the ftiff, flow pace
One ftep fcarce gains, while wide his annual race
Two hundred times the fun triumphant rides ;
The crystal heaven is this, whofe rigour guides

r

And binds the starry sphere: That sphere behold,
With diamonds fpangled, and emblazed with gold;
What radiant orbs that azure sky adorn,

Fair o'er the night in rapid motion borne!

Swift

motion of the fixt ftars. The earth is not a perfect fphere; the quantity of matter is greater at the equator; hence the earth turns on her axis in a rocking motion, revolving round the axis of the ecliptic, which is called the proceffion of the equinoxes, and makes the stars feem to shift their places at about the rate of a degree in 72 years; according to which all the stars seem to perform one revolution in the space of 25,920 years, after which they return exactly to the fame fituation as at the beginning of this period. However imperfect in their calculations, the Chaldaic astronomers perceived that the motions of the heavens compofed one great revolution. This they called the Annus Magnus, which those who did not understand them mistook for a restoration of all things to their first originals, and that the world was at that period to begin anew in every refpect. Hence the old Egyptian notion, that every one was at the end of thirty-nine thousand years to resume every circumftance of his prefent life, to be exactly the fame in every contingency. And hence also the legends of the Bramins and Mandarins, their periods of millions of years, and the worlds which they tell us are already past, and eternally to fucceed each other.

▾ And binds the starry sphere. This was called the firmament or eighth heaven. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Venus, Mercury, and Diana, were the planets which gave name to, and whose orbits compofed the other fpheres or heavens.

Swift as they trace the heaven's deep circling line,
Whirl'd on their proper axles bright they shine.
Wide o'er this heaven a golden belt displays
Twelve various forms; behold the glittering blaze!
Through these the sun in annual journey towers,
And o'er each clime their various tempers pours.
In gold and filver of celestial mine

How rich far round the conftellations fhine!
Lo, bright emerging o'er the polar tides

In fhining froft the northern chariot rides:
Mid treasur'd fnows here gleams the grisly bear,
And icy flakes incruft his shaggy hair.

Here fair Andromeda of heaven beloved:

Her vengeful fire, and by the gods reproved

s In fhining froft the northern chariot rides

Beau

-Commonly called Charlefwain. Of Calisto, or the Bear, fee the note on page 50. vol. ii. Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, and of Caffiope. Caffiope boasted that she and her daughter were more beautiful than Juno and the Nereids. Andromeda, to appease the goddess, was, at her father's command, chained to a rock to be devoured by a sea monster, but was faved by Perfeus, who obtained of Jupiter that all the family fhould be placed among the stars. Orion was a hunter, who, for an attempt on Diana, was ftung to death by a ferpent. The star of his name portends tempefts. The dogs; fable gives this honour to those of different hunters. The faithful dog of Erigone, however, that died mad with grief for the death of his mistress, has the best title to prefide over the dog days. The fwan; that whofe form Jupiter borrowed to enjoy Leda. The hare, when pursued by Orion, was faved by Mercury, and placed in heaven, to fignify that Mercury prefides over melancholy difpofitions. The lyre, with which Orpheus charmed Pluto. The dragon, which guarded the golden apples of the Hefperides, and the ship Argo, complete the number of the conftellations mentioned by Camoëns. If our author has blended the appearances of heaven with those of the painted artificial fphere, it is in the manner of the claffics. Ovid, in particular, thus defcribes the heavens, in the fecond book of his Metamorphofes.

Beauteous Caffiope. Here fierce and red
Portending ftorms Orion lifts his head;
And here the dogs their raging fury shed.
The fwan-fweet melodift! in death he fings-
The milder fwan here spreads his filver wings.
Here Orpheus' lyre, the melancholy hare,
And here the watchful dragon's eye-balls glare;
And Thefeus' fhip, Oh, lefs renown'd than thine,
Shall ever o'er thefe fkies illuftrious fhine.
Beneath this radiant firmament behold

The various planets in their orbits roll'd :
Here in cold twilight hoary Saturn rides,
Here Jove fhines mild, here fiery Mars prefides,
Apollo here enthroned in light appears

}

The eye of heaven, emblazer of the spheres;
Beneath him beauteous glows the Queen of Love,
The proudeft hearts her facred influence prove;
Here Hermes famed for eloquence divine,
And here Diana's various faces fhine;

Lowest she rides, and through the shadowy night
Pours on the glistening earth her filver light.
Thefe various orbs, behold, in various speed

Pursue the journeys at their birth decreed.
Now from the centre far impell'd they fly,
Now nearer earth they fail a lower sky,

A fhorten'd courfe: Such are their laws impreft
By God's dread will, that will for ever best.

t

The

t impreft by God's dread will.Though a modern narrative of bawdy-house adventures in the South Seas by no means requires the fuppo

fition