COMAL AND GALBINA. OSSIAN. JOURNFUL is thy tale, son Comal was the son of Albion, the chief of a hundred red hills! His deer drunk of a thousand streams. A thousand rocks replied to the voice of his dogs. His face was the mildness of youth; his hand the death of heroes. One was his love and fair was she, the daughter of the mighty Conloch. She appeared like a sunbeam among women. Her hair was the wing of the raven. Her dogs were Her dogs were taught to the chase. Her bowstring sounded on the winds. Her soul was fixed on Comal. Often met their eyes of love. Their course of love. Their course in the chase was one. Happy were their words in secret. But Grumal loved the maid, the dark chief of the gloomy Ardven. He watched her lone steps in the heath, the foe of unhappy Comal. One day, tired of the chase, when the mist had concealed their friends, Comal and the daughter of Conloch met in the cave of Ronan. It was the wonted haunt of Comal. Its sides were hung with his arms. A hundred shields of thongs were there; a "Rest hundred helms of sounding steel. He went to the deer of Mora. The daugh- came. But who He threw An arrow May I express thee unblamed, since God is So were, I equalled with them in renown, light, And never but in unapproached light sun, Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides, Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Escaped the Stygian pool, though long de- Presented with a universal blank THE SIDEREAL HEAVENS. THE MILKY WAY. S we advance in our survey of the distant regions of the universe the astonishing grandeur and extent of the sidereal heavens gradually open to our view. Had we no other objects to engage our attention, ages might be spent in contemplating and admiring the economy and magnificence of those starry groups which appear to the unaided eye on the nearer boundary of our firmament. But all that is visible to man's unassisted vision is as nothing when compared with the immensity of august and splendid objects which stretch themselves in boundless perspective toward infinity. The discoveries of modern astronomy have enlarged the sphere of our conceptions far beyond what could have been formerly surmised, and opened to view a universe boundless as its Creator, where human imagination is lost and confounded, and in which man appears like a mere microscopic animalculum and his whole habitation as a particle of vapor when compared to the ocean. In contemplating the visible firmament with the unassisted eye we behold only the mere portals, as it were, which lead to the interior recesses of the vast temple of creation. When we direct our views beyond these outer portals by means of the most powerful telescopes, we obtain a view of some of its more magnificent porches and a faint glimpse of those splendid apartments which we shall never be able to explore, but which lead us to form the most august conceptions of the extent and grandeur of what is concealed from our view. In entering this temple "not made with hands," the splendor of its decorations, the amplitude of its scale and the awfulness of infinitude forcibly strike the imagination. There is sufficient to awaken into exercise all the powers and feelings of devotion, and to excite us to fall down in humility and adoration before Him whose word spoke into existence this astonishing fabric, and "whose kingdom ruleth over all." When we take a general view of the heavens about the months of August, September and October and during the winter months, we cannot fail observing a large irregular whitish zone stretching across the sky, with a few interruptions, from one end of the firmament to another. This mighty zone thus stretching itself around us is sometimes termed the "Galaxy," sometimes the "Via Lactea," but more frequently, in plain English, the "Milky Way," from its resemblance to the whiteness of milk. This luminous band is visible to every observer, and is the only real and sensible circle in the heavens. When traced throughout its different directions, it is found to encircle the whole sphere of the heavens, though in some parts of its course it is broader and more | amazing and boundless universe. We behold not only ten thousands, but millions, of splendid suns where not a single orb can be perceived by the unassisted eye. The distance at which these luminous globes are placed from our abode is altogether over brilliant than in others. In all ages, so far as we know, this wonderful zone has retained the same position among the constellations as at the present day, and is frequently alluded to both by the astronomers and the poets of antiquity. Thus Ovid, on account of its lustre, represents it as the high-road to heav-whelming; even the most lively imaginaen, or the court of Jupiter: tion drops its wings when attempting its flight into such unfathomable regions. The scenes of grandeur and magnificence connected with such august objects are utterly overwhelming to such frail and limited beings as man, and perhaps even more exalted And Milton, in his "Paradise Lost," alludes orders of intelligences may find it difficult to to it in these lines: A broad and ample road whose dust is gold, And pavement stars, as stars to us appear; Seen in the galaxy that Milky Way, Like to a circling zone powdered with stars." The ancients seem to have conjectured that the whiteness of this zone was owing to a confluence of stars; for Ovid, in the lines above quoted, says, "The groundwork is of "The groundwork is of stars." Soon after the invention of the telescope this conjecture was confirmed, and astronomers were astonished at the number of stars which appeared in this bright zone of the heavens; and their number appeared to be increased in proportion to the magnifying powers of their telescopes. Let us pause for a moment and consider the august spectacle presented to view. We behold a few whitish spaces in the firmament almost overlooked by a common observer when he casts a rude glance upon the evening sky, yet in this apparently irregular belt, which appears only like an accidental tinge on the face of the firmament, we discover by optical instruments what appears to be an form even an approximate idea of objects so distant, so numerous and so sublime. On our first excursions into the celestial regions we are almost frightened at the idea of the distance of such a body as Saturn, which a cannon-ball projected from the earth and flying with its utmost velocity would not reach in one hundred and eighty years. We are astonished at the size of such a planet as Jupiter, which could contain within its circumference more than a thousand globes as large as the earth. We are justly amazed at the stupendous magnitude of the sun, which is a thousand times the size of Jupiter, and which illuminates with its splendor a sphere of more than five thousand million of miles in circumference. But what are all. such distances and dimensions, vast and amazing as they are, compared with the astonishing grandeur of the scene before us? They sink into comparative insignificance and are almost lost sight of amid the myriads of splendid suns which occupy the profundities of the Milky Way. What is one sun and one planetary system in the presence of ten million of suns perhaps far more |