anets,--the planets as yet
having no existence. Its temperature gradually diminished,
and, becoming contracted by cooling, the rotation increased
in rapidity, and zones of nebulosity were successively
thrown off, in consequence of the centrifugal force
overpowering the central attraction. The condensation of
these separate masses constituted the planets and
satellites. But this view of the conversion of gaseous
matter into planetary bodies is not limited to our own
system; it extends to the formation of the innumerable suns
and worlds which are distributed throughout the universe.
The sublime discoveries of modern astronomers have shown
that every part of the realms of space abounds in large
expansions of attenuated matter termed nebulae, which are
irregularly reflective of light, of various figures, and in
different states of condensation, from that of a diffused,
luminous mass to suns and planets like our own."--From
Mantell's eloquent and delightful work, entitled "The
Wonders of Geology," volume i. page 22.)

There, in that enormous solitude of an infant world, which thousands and
thousands of years can alone ripen into form, the spirit of Viola beheld
the shape of Zanoni, or rather the likeness, the simulacrun, the LEMUR
of his shape, not its human and corporeal substance,--as if, like hers,
the Intelligence was parted from the Clay,--and as the sun, while it
revolves and glows, had cast off into remotest space that nebular image
of itself, so the thing of earth, in the action of its more luminous and
enduring being, had thrown its likeness into that new-born stranger of
the heavens. There stood the phantom,--a phantom Mejnour, by its side.
In the gigantic chaos around raved and struggled the kindling elements;
water and fire, darkness and light, at war,--vapour and cloud hardening
into mountains, and the Breath of Life moving like a steadfast splendour
over all.

As the dreamer looked, and shivered, she beheld that even there the
two phantoms of humanity were not alone. Dim monster-forms that that
disordered chaos alone could engender, the first reptile Colossal race
that wreathe and crawl through the earliest stratum of a world labouring
into life, coiled in the oozing matter or hovered through the meteorous
vapours. But these the two seekers seemed not to heed; their gaze was
fixed intent upon an object in the farthest s