numerous, between the ships and the streams of the Xanthus, appeared the fires of the Trojans, burning them in front of Ilium. A thousand fires burned upon the plain, and beside each sat fifty men by the light of the blazing fire. And the horses, eating white barley and oats, standing beside their chariots, awaited the fair-throned morning.

THE SAME.

(Rendered into verse by Pope.)

The troops exulting sat in order round,
And beaming fires illumin'd all the ground.
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night!
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.

So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays:
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires.
A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,

And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field.
Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,
Whose umber'd arms, by fits, thick flashes send.
Loud neigh the courses o'er their heaps of corn,
And ardent warriors wait the rising morn.

The Moon is a circular body.

The light from the full moon is 300,000 times less intense than that of the sun.

Miles.

Her distance from the earth about 240,000

Her diameter,

2,144

The immense quantity of matter contained in the universe, presents a most striking display of Almighty Power.

In endeavouring to form a definite notion on this subject, the mind is bewildered in its conceptions, and is at a loss where to begin, or where to end its excursions.

In order to form something approaching to a well defined idea,

we must pursue a train of thought commencing with those magnitudes which the mind can easily grasp, proceeding through all the intermediate gradations of magnitude, and fixing the attention on every portion of the chain, till we arrive at the object or magnitude of which we wish to form a conception. We must endeavour, in the first place, to form an idea of the bulk of the world in which we dwell; which, though only a point in comparison of the whole material universe, is, in reality, a most astonishing magnitude, which the mind cannot grasp without a laborious effort. We can form some definite idea of those protuberant masses we denominate hills, which rise above