Regularity may be
beautiful, but it excludes the sublime. What he wished for was
something like Lloyd's list.
_Comets_--due 3; arrived 1.
_Mercury_, when last seen, appeared to be distressed; but made no
signals.
_Pallas_ and _Vesta_, not heard of for some time; supposed to
have foundered.
_Moon_, spoken last night through a heavy bank of clouds; out
sixteen days: all right.
Now this poor man's misfortune was, to have lived in the days of mere
planetary astronomy. At present, when our own little system, with all
its grandeurs, has dwindled by comparison to a subordinate province, if
any man is bold enough to say so, a poor shivering unit amongst myriads
that are brighter, we ought no longer to talk of astronomy, but of
_the astronomies_. There is the planetary, the cometary, the
sidereal, perhaps also others; as, for instance, even yet the nebular;
because, though Lord Rosse has smitten it with the son of Amram's rod,
has made it open, and cloven a path through it, yet other and more
fearful _nebulae_ may loom in sight, (if further improvements
should be effected in the telescope,) that may puzzle even Lord Rosse.
And when he tells his _famulus_--'Fire a shot at that strange
fellow, and make him show his colors,' possibly the mighty stranger may
disdain the summons.
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