swear that her little heart beat. She promised not to forget me, or marry a lord before March." This was "all youthful, warm, natural-in short, genuine love." Soon after, he learned that Miss Blair was still within reach. He revisited her, and relapsed into the former fever. "I walked whole hours with the Princess; I kneeled; I became truly amorous; but she told me that she had a very great regard for me, but did not like me so as to marry me." "Then came a kind letter from my amiable Aunt Boyd in Ireland, and all the charms of sweet Mary Anne revived. Since that time, I have been quite constant to her, and as indifferent towards Kate as if I never had thought of her." The problem came to a solution next year by his marrying Miss Montgomerie.

violent quarrel, as thus recorded: "Upon his seeing me by no means in good-humor, he challenged it roughly, and said: 'I suppose you thought I was to bring you into parliament; I never had any such intention.' In short, he expressed himself in the most degrading manner, in presence of a low man from Carlisle, and one of his menial servants! The miserable state of low spirits I had, as you too well know, labored under for some time before, made me almost sink under such unexpected insulting behavior. He insisted rigorously on my having solicited the office of Recorder of Carlisle; and that I could not, without using him ill, resign it, until the duties which were now required of it were fulfilled, and without a sufficient time being given for the election of a successor. Thus was I dragged away, as wretched as a convict; and in my fretfulness I used such expressions as irritated him almost to fury, so that he used such expressions toward me, that I should have, according to the irrational laws of honor sanctioned by the world, been under the necessity of risking my life, had not an explanation taken place. This happened during the first stage. The rest of the journey was barely tolerable: we got to Lancaster on Saturday night, and there I left him to the turmoil of a desperate attempt in electioneering. I proceeded to Carlisle last night, and to-day have been signing orders as to poor's rates. I am alone at an inn, in wretched spirits, and ashamed and sunk on account of the disappointment of hopes which led me to endure such grievances. I deserve all that I suffer."

The cares and responsibilities of matrimony never had any effect in steadying Boswell's giddy course. At five-and-forty, after comparatively failing at the Scotch, he entered at the English bar. The change of position only expanded his indulgences, not his fortunes. We find him confessing that he had all his life been straitened for money. Can we wonder at it in one who made the following of his whims and the indulgence of his tastes and appetites the rule of his life? Poor Boswell! It is melancholy to find that, while preparing his wonderful book, the disappointment of his professional failure, the pinch of genteel poverty, and the rough raillery of the Northern Circuit, all pressed sore upon his spirit. Reared amongst an intemperate set, he gradually became more and more addicted to liquor-was constantly resolving to abstain-but always relapsing. For a long time he had hopes of getting a government place; looking to parliamentary influence in Ayrshire as a purchase against the minister; but all ended in disappoint- The letters of the last five years ment. By some influence with the Earl of of little but illness and depression of spirits Lonsdale, he did obtain the situation of a sad contrast to the frivolous gayety of Recorder of Carlisle; but it does not seem to have brought an income, and the connection came to a painful termination, the noble lord and his dependent having a

What a lesson on the sorrows of slothful dependence, as contrasted with honest independent hard work and selfdenial! tell us

those written in youth. Boswell sank, to all appearance, under the consequences of dissipation, at the too early age of fiftyfive, (May, 1795.)

From the Leisure Hour.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF SATURN.

66

AN object scarcely discernible in the and a snail's pace, but now familiarly haze of the remote horizon, commands no known as one of the most engaging and admiration and excites no interest, unless extraordinary objects in the heavens. we know beforehand what it is. Fre- Owing to this slowness of motion, his symquently, however, on a near approach, an bol was adopted as the hieroglyphic of indistinct and insignificant speck discloses lead. But though of very portly propor stately proportions and a grand architec- tions-a kind of Daniel Lambert among tural character. It may be a castle of the the planets, and therefore not readily to be olden time, with towers, turrets, and bat- lifted-Saturn is really a light, buoyant tlements, once inhabited by a baron bold; personage, as to the material of which he or a mansion of the Tudor age, with halls, is composed; for the density is little more corridors, galleries, oriel windows, tennis- than that of cork. Instead, therefore, of court, and all the appurtenances deemed sinking like lead in the mighty waters, he necessary by power, pride, or opulence. would float upon the liquid, if tossed From the moment that this discovery is into a tumbler sufficiently capacious to remade, though the edifice is never ap- ceive his girth. John Goad, the wellproached again, and is only seen afar off known astro-meteorologist, declared the as a puny thing, we think not of it as it planet not to be such a plumbeous blewappears in the distant landscape, but as-nosed fellow" as all antiquity had besociate with it ideas in harmony with its lieved, and the world still supposed. But it real dimensions and actual details. The was the work of others to prove it. speck has for ever ceased to be one in our minds. It is a castle grim, or a mansion noble. Now precisely analogous is the effect which the telescope has produced with reference to the orbs of the universe. Though the interval between us and them remains literally the same, yet it has been practically abridged by the instrument; for its optical power is equivalent to a corresponding lessening of the distance. Accordingly, since it was applied to celestial observation, a magic change has been wrought in human conceptions of the bodies in our system, as though a bridge had been partly thrown over the great gulf of space, which has brought us millions of leagues nearer to their orbits; and we no longer think of them as they appear to the unassisted vision, but as exhibited by instrumental means.

Among the corrections offered to thought by this practical approximation, perhaps the most striking is the change of ideas with reference to the planet Saturn, for ages viewed as having no special claims to notice, and merely regarded as a dull, dreary, malignant star, with a leaden hue'

For six thousand years or so, Saturn successfully concealed his personal features, interesting family, and strange appurtenances - the magnificent out-buildings of his house-from the knowledge of mankind. But he was caught at last by a little tube, pointed at him from a slope of the Appenines, the holder of which, in invading his privacy, neither cared to say, "if you please, sir," nor "by your leave." Again and again, with provoking pertinacity, the tube was held up; for it had disclosed something, not known before, respecting the planet's quarters, which the holder wanted to find out. From that period, through nearly two centuries and a half, they have been diligently overhauled, and remarkable disclosures have turned up in the rummage. It is not, however, certain that we yet know the real number of the Saturnian family, and the full structure of his out-houses.

Armed with a telescope of inferior power, Galileo, in the year 1610, surveyed the planet, and found it apparently of an oblong form, somewhat like the shape of an olive-thus. This was the first pe

nature of the event, the weakness of my understanding, and the fear of being mistaken, have greatly confounded me." Galileo, however, witnessed the old appearance again, and saw them renew their changes; but he never understood the cause of their vicissitudes, for the secret of their nature was not solved in his time.

culiarity noticed; but using an instrument | I do not know what to say in a case so surof greater power, in the same year, it ap- prising, so unlooked-for, and so novel. peared to be, not single, but composed of The shortness of the time, the unexpected three bodies, which almost touched each other, and constantly maintained the same relative position. He described the three bodies as arranged in the same straight line; the middle one was the largest, and the two others were situated respectively on the east and west sides of it. "They are," says he, "constituted of this form oOo;" and he goes on to remark exultingly, "Now I have discovered a court for Jupiter," (alluding to his satellites,) "and two servants for this old man, Saturn, who aid his steps and never quit his side." The discovery he announced to Kepler, under the veil of a logograph, which sorely puzzled him. This was not to be wondered at, for it ran :

Restoring the transposed letters to their proper places, we have the sentence, Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi "I have observed the most distant planet to be threefold."

However great the surprise of the observer, it was soon followed by the utmost astonishment and perplexity. He found that while the lateral bodies appeared immovable, both with respect to each other and the central body, they were constantly diminishing in their apparent magnitudes. They continued to grow less and less through the two following years, at the close of which they vanished altogether. The old man, or the planet, now seemed simply round, while the two servants provided for him, as if disliking their master or the place, had fled. The disappearance was perfectly unaccountable; but if it occasioned perplexity, it created not a little alarm; for the observer justly feared, that being unable to explain the circumstance, his enemies would take advantage of it to discredit all his observations, as having no foundation in nature. This was a trial somewhat hard to bear. "What," he remarks, "is to be said concerning so strange a metamorphosis? Are the two lesser stars consumed, after the manner of the solar spots? Have they vanished and suddenly fled? Has Saturn perhaps devoured his own children? Or were the appearances indeed delusion or fraud, with which the glasses have so long deceived me, as well as many others, to whom I have shown them?

As increased optical power was brought to bear upon the planet, former representations of its aspect were greatly modified. Thus the two lateral bodies, instead of being round, seemed to be two luminous crescents. Instead also of being detached from the central body, keeping a respectful distance, as servants in the presence of the squire, they appeared to be actual parts of the old gentleman himself, proprotruding as side limbs from him. The crescents were apparently attached by their cusps to the central body, as if forming two ansa or handles to it; but they were so constantly, though slowly, altering their conformation, and giving a different aspect to the planet, that while astronomers were perplexed about the meaning of the phases, they were at some loss for terms to define them. Seldom has an object been distinguished by such a variety of names, more or less uncouth, suggestive of change of form, as Saturn. At one time he was pronounced "monospherical," at another" trispherical," now "spherico-ansated," then "elliptico-ansated," and anon "spherico-cuspidated."

At last, with a superior telescope, Huyghens took the mysterious personage in hand, and became somewhat intimately acquainted with him. He first discovered a satellite, a kind of eldest son, the brightest member of the family. This was in 1655. In the following year he announced, in a small tract, the true constitution of Saturn, though in a most unedifying way; for it was conveyed in the following array of letters, which might baffle a decipherer of the Assyrian inscriptions:

of the outer ring, or 177,500 miles. As to the thickness of the ring, this is proved by various circumstances to be very inconsiderable, perhaps not amounting to more that from one to two hundred miles. Such, indeed, is its thinness, that when the mi

position between the equator and the poles, about the parallel of forty-five degrees. The same investigator first remarked the superior brilliancy of the polar regions. This is least obvious after they have been long exposed to the influence of the solar rays; and most distinct when just emerg-nutest of the satellites, which can only be ing from the long night of their polar winter. Whether the appearance arises from the presence of snow, at its minimum at the former period, and its maximum at the latter; or whether from fluctuating vapors suspended above the surface, the existence of an atmosphere is necessarily implied. In August, 1789, after having just completed his forty-feet reflector, Herschel discovered a fresh satellite; and another in the following month, by means of the same powerful instrument, making the total number then known seven.

The remarkable appendages of the planet did not escape a rigid scrutiny; and Herschel may be said to have been the first to place beyond doubt the duality of the ring. He also ascertained the fact of the rotation of the rings, which had been inferred from the laws of mechanics, as necessary in order to generate a centrifugal force sufficient to balance the attraction of the planet, and prevent precipitation upon its surface. He inferred from his observations that an atmosphere enveloped them; that superficial irregularities mark their construction; and he was the first who discerned the shadow cast on the planet, when the edge, being turned toward the earth, was invisible. It was also remarked by this distinguished man that the light of the rings is brighter than that of the planet; and that the brightness of the interior one gradually diminishes inward, till at the inner edge it is scarcely greater than that of the shaded belts of the orb. Seen under a high magnifying power, Saturn exhibits no leaden hue, but a light of a yellowish tinge, while that of the rings is white. The interior ring is brighter than the exterior. The difference between them in this respect has been illustrated by that which subsists between unwrought and polished silver.

In round numbers, the inner ring is 20,000 miles from the surface of the planet; its own breadth, similarly given, is 17,000; the interval of separation is 1800; and the breadth of the outer ring is 10,500 miles. If we double these numbers, and add the diameter of the planet, 79,000 miles, the result is the exterior diameter

reached by telescopes of extraordinary power, appears on the edge, it projects on the opposite sides, above and below. Herschel once saw his two little moons in this position, as beads moving along a line of light, "like pearls strung on a silver thread."

We must rapidly sum up the remainder of our story. Saturn, it seems, has not his house seated at the centre of his courtyard, but a little to the west of it; and well for him and his appurtenances it is that this arrangement has been made. The eccentricity, after being surmised, was proved by Struve in 1826. Instead of the centre of gravity of the rings being coïncident with that of the planet, the former describes a very minute orbit around the latter. Insignificant as this fact may appear, it is essential to the conservation of the system; for had the two centres exactly coïncided, it can be shown that any external force, such as the attraction of a satellite, would subvert the equilibrium of the rings, and precipitate them upon the orb. How true it is that the same Lord who by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath established the heavens! It has since been ascertained that the outer ring is in itself multiple; and that there is either a distinct semi-transparent appendage nearer the planet than the old inner ring, or a continuation of the latter, very much inferior to it in brightness. In the sky of Saturn, the rings. must appear as vast and inconceivably splendid luminous arches, stretching across the heavens from horizon to horizon, to those regions on which their enlightened sides are turned; but as a counterpoise, regions in opposite circumstances receive their shadows, which involve them in a gloom of a full solar eclipse. It would, however, be a very foolish proceeding, as Sir John Herschel has well remarked, to judge of the fitness or unfitness of such conditions from what we see around us," when, perhaps, the very combinations which convey to our minds only images of horror, may be in reality theatres of the most striking and glorious displays of beneficent contrivance."