Note 42 — INTRODUCTION.

—-—-—“Amid the radiant orbs

That mere than deck, that animate the sky,

The life-infusing suns of other worlds,

Lo! from the dread immensity of space

Returning with accelerated course,

The rushing Comet to the sun descends;

And, as he sinks below the shading earth,

With awful train projected o’er the heavens,

The guilty nations tremble. But, above

Those superstitious horrors that enslave

The fond sequacious herd, to mystic faith

And blind amazement prone, th’ enlighten’d few,

Whose godlike minds Philosophy exalts,

The glorious stranger hail. They feel a joy

Divinely great; they in their powers exult;

That wond’rous force of thought, which mounting spurns

This dusky spot, and measures all the sky;

While, from his far excursions through the wilds

Of barren ether, faithful to his time,

They see the blazing wonder rise anew,

In seeming terror clad, but kindly bent

To work the will of all-sustaining love:

From his huge vapoury train perhaps to shake

Renewing moisture on the numerous orbs,

Through which his long elipsis winds; perhaps

To lend new fuel to declining suns,

To light up worlds, and feed th’ eternal fire.”

Thomson’s Summer, l. 1702 and seq.