s gradually increasing; the head was in the east,
the tail in the west, and it remained visible above forty days. The
nations, who gazed with astonishment, expected wars and calamities
from their baleful influence; and these expectations were abundantly
fulfilled. The astronomers dissembled their ignorance of the nature of
these blazing stars, which they affected to represent as the floating
meteors of the air; and few among them embraced the simple notion of
Seneca and the Chaldeans, that they are only planets of a longer
period and more eccentric motion. Time and science have justified the
conjectures and predictions of the Roman sage: the telescope has opened
new worlds to the eyes of astronomers; and, in the narrow space of
history and fable, one and the same comet is already found to have
revisited the earth in _seven_ equal revolutions of five hundred and
seventy-five years. The _first_, which ascends beyond the Christian aera
one thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven years, is coeval with Ogyges,
the father of Grecian antiquity. And this appearance explains the
tradition which Varro has preserved, that under his reign the planet
Venus changed her color, size, figure, and course; a prodigy without
example either in past or succeeding ages. The _second_ visit, in the
year eleven hundred and ninety-three, is darkly implied in the fable of
Electra, the seventh of the Pleiads, who have been reduced to six since
the time of the Trojan war. That nymph, the wife of Dardanus, was unable
to support the ruin of her country: she abandoned the dances of her
sister orbs, fled from the zodiac to the north pole, and obtained,
from her dishevelled locks, the name of the _comet_. The _third_ period
expires in the year six hundred and eighteen, a date that exactly agrees
with the tremendous comet of the Sibyl, and perhaps of Pliny, which
arose in the West two generations before the reign of Cyrus. The
_fourth_ apparition, forty-four years before the birth of Christ, is of
all others the most splendid and important. After the death of Caesar, a
long-haired star was conspicuous to Rome and to the nations, during the
games which were exhibited by young Octavian in honor of Venus and his
uncle. The vulgar opinion, that it conveyed to heaven the divine soul of
the dictator, was cherished and consecrated by the piety of a statesman;
while his secret superstition referred the comet to the glory of his own
times. The _fifth_ visit has been