experience, I could have filled many sheets for each
page of the present article. But it has seemed to me more instructive
to show how error may affect the observations even of the most careful
and deservedly eminent astronomers, how even the most cautious may be
for a time misled by the mistakes of inferior observers, especially when
the fact supposed to have been observed accords with preconceived
opinions.

XII.

_THE ORIGIN OF THE CONSTELLATION-FIGURES._

Although the strange figures which astronomers still allow to straggle
over their star maps no longer have any real scientific interest, they
still possess a certain charm, not only for the student of astronomy,
but for many who care little or nothing about astronomy as a science.
When I was giving a course of twelve lectures in Boston, America, a
person of considerable culture said to me, 'I wish you would lecture
about the constellations; I care little about the sun and moon and the
planets, and not much more about comets; but I have always felt great
interest in the Bears and Lions, the Chained and Chaired Ladies, King
Cepheus and the Rescuer Perseus, Orion, Ophiuchus, Hercules, and the
rest of the mythical and fanciful beings with which the old astronomers
peopled the heavens. I say with Carlyle, "Why does not some one teach me
the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are
always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day."' We may
notice, too, that the poets by almost unanimous consent have recognised
the poetical aspect of the constellations, while they have found little
to say about subjects which belong especially to astronomy as a science.
Milton has indeed made an Archangel reason (not unskilfully for Milton's
day) about the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, while Tennyson makes
frequent reference to astronomical theories. 'There sinks the nebulous
star we call the Sun, if that hypothesis of theirs be sound,' said Ida;
but she said no more, save 'let us down and rest,' as though the subject
were wearisome to her. Again, in the Palace of Art the soul of the poet
having built herself that 'great house so royal, rich, and wide,'
thither--

... when all the deep unsounded skies
Shuddered with silent stars, she clomb,
And as with optic glasses her keen eyes
Pierced through the mystic dome,
Regions of lucid matter taking forms,
Brushes of fire, hazy gleams,
Clusters and beds of worlds and bee