by the piety of a statesman; while his secret superstition referred the comet to the glory of his own times.[1] The fifth visit has been already ascribed to the fifth year of Justinian, which coincides with the five hundred and thirty-first of the Christian aera. And it may deserve notice that in this, as in the preceding, instance the comet was followed, though at a longer interval, by a remarkable paleness of the sun. The sixth return, in the year eleven hundred and six, is recorded by the chronicles of Europe and China; and in the first fervour of the Crusades, the Christians and the Mahometans might surmise, with equal reason, that it portended the destruction of the Infidels. The seventh phænomenon of one thousand six hundred and eighty was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age.[2] The philosophy of Bayle dispelled a prejudice which Milton's muse had so recently adorned, that the comet "from its horrid hair shakes pestilence and war".[3] Its road in the heavens was observed with exquisite skill by Flamsteed Flamstead and Cassini; and the mathematical science of Bernoulli, Newton, and Halley, investigated the laws of its revolutions. At the eighth period, in the year two thousand two hundred and fifty-five, their calculations may perhaps be verified by the astronomers of some future capital in the Siberian or American wilderness.
Earthquakes II. The near approach of a comet may injure or destroy the globe which we inhabit; but the changes on its surface have been hitherto produced by the action of volcanoes and earthquakes.[4] The nature of the soil may indicate the countries most exposed to these formidable concussions, since they are caused by subterraneous fires, and such fires are kindled by the- ↑ Pliny (Hist. Nat. ii. 23) has transcribed the original memorial of Augustus. Mairan, in his most ingenious letters to the P. Parennin, missionary in China, removes the games and the comet of September, from the year 44 to the year 43, before the Christian æra; but I am not totally subdued by the criticism of the astronomer (Opuscules, p. 275-351).
- ↑ This last comet was visible in the month of December, 1680. Bayle, who began his Pensées sur le Comète in January 1681 (Oeuvres, tom, iii.), was forced to argue that a supernatural comet would have confirmed the ancients in their idolatry. Bernoulli (see his Eloge, in Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 99) was forced to allow that the tail, though not the head, was a sign of the wrath of God.
- ↑ Paradise Lost was published in the year 1667; and the famous lines (l. ii. 708, &c.), which startled the licenser, may allude to the recent comet of 1664, observed by Cassini at Rome in the presence of queen Christina (Fontenelle in his Eloge, tom. v. p. 338). Had Charles II. betrayed any symptoms of curiosity or fear?
- ↑ For the cause of earthquakes, see Buffon (tom. i. p. 502-536. Supplément à l'Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 382-390, edition in 4to), Valmont de Bomare (Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, Tremblemens de Terre, Pyrites), Watson (Chemical Essays, tom. i. p. 181-209). [R. Mallet, The First Principles of Observational Seismology, 1862.]
