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, So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field. 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 |