the terminator of the earth, and the other on the pin which supports the ball of Venus; the wire is to lie in a notch at the top of the socket, which has been put on the supporting stem of Venus: then will the wire represent a visual ray going from an inhabitant of the earth to Venus. By turning the handle you will now find that the planet never departs farther than certain limits from the sun, which are called its greatest elongations, when the wire becomes a tangent to the orbit, after which it approaches the sun, till it arrives at either the inferior or superior conjunction. It is also evident from the instrument, that Venus, from her superior conjunction, when she is farthest from the earth, to the time of her inferior conjunction, when she is nearest, sets later than the sun, is seen after sunset, and is, as it were, the forerunner of night and darkness. But from the inferior conjunction till she come to the superior one, she is always seen westward of the sun, and must consequently set before him in the evening, and rise before him in the morning, foretelling that light and day are at hand. Bring Venus and the earth to the beginning of Aries, when they will be in conjunction; and turn the handle for nearly 225 days, and as Venus moves faster than the earth, she will arrive at Aries, and have finished her course, but will not have overtaken the earth, which has moved on in its orbit, and Venus must go on for some time to overtake it. Therefore, if Venus should be this day in conjunction with the sun, in the inferior part of her orbit, she will not come again to the same conjunction till after 1 year, 7 months, and 12 days. It is plain, by inspection of the planetarium, that though Venus does always keep nearly at the same distance from the sun, yet she is continually changing her distance from the earth; her distance is greatest when she is in her superior, and least when she is in her inferior, conjunction.

As Venus is an opaque globe, and only shines by the light she receives from the sun, that face which is turned towards the sun will always be bright, while the opposite one will be in darkness; consequently, if the situation of the earth be

such, that the dark side of Venus be turned towards us, she will then be invisible, except she appear like a spot on the disk of the sun. If her whole illuminated face be turned towards the earth, as it is in her superior conjunction, she appears of a circular form; and, according to the different po sitions of the earth and Venus, she will have different forms, and appear with different phases, undergoing the same changes of form as the moon. The irregularity in the apparent motions of the planet, is a subject that this instrument will fully elucidate; and the observer will find that it is only apparent, taking its rise from the situation and motion of the observer. To illustrate this, let us suppose the aforementioned wire, when connected with Venus and the earth, to be the visual ray of an observer on the earth; it will then point out how the motions of Venus appear in the heavens, and the path she appears to us to describe among the fixed stars, which resembles the arc of a circle, moving about 47° on each side of the sun.

Let Venus be placed near her superior conjunction, the wire will mark out the apparent motion of Venus in the ecliptic. Thus Venus will appear to move eastward in the ecliptic, till the wire become a tangent to the orbit of Venus, in which situation she will appear to us to be stationary, or not to advance at all among the fixed stars; a circumstance which is exceedingly clear and visible upon the planetarium.

If we continue turning till Venus be in her superior conjunction, we shall find by the wire or visual ray that she now appears to move backward in the ecliptic, or from east to west, till she has arrived at that part where the visual ray again becomes a tangent to her orbit. In which position Venus will again appear stationary for some time; after which she will commence anew her direct motion. Hence, when Venus is in the superior part of her orbit, she is always seen to move directly, according to the order of the signs; but when she is in the inferior part, she appears to move in a COM y direction. What has been said concerning the motions of Venus is applicable to Mercury; but the conjunc

tions of Mercury with the sun, as well as the times of his being direct, stationary, or retrograde, are more frequent than those of Venus.

The apparent passage of any planet over the face of the sun, or of any other celestial body, is called a transit. This name is also given to the passage of a star, or planet, over the meridian, or before the object glass or speculum of any astronomical instrument.

Venus is sometimes seen on the face of the sun, appearing like a dark speck. She can be in that situation but very seldom, and only when she is between the earth and the sun, and when the earth is in a line with her nodes. The last transit of Venus was in 1769; the next will be in 1874. Alluding to the infrequency of this planet's appearance, "in dim eclipse, shorn of her beams," Dr. Halley says, Though Venus is the most beautiful of all the stars, yet, like the rest of her sex, she does not care to appear in sight without her brilliant ornament and accustomed splendor. For the confined laws of motion deny this spectacle to the mortals of a whole age; like the secular games of the ancients; though it be by far the most noble among all those that astronomy can pretend to shew. Now, continues the great philosopher, it shall be declared, that, by this one observation alone, the distance of the sun from the earth may be determined with certainty.

The first astronomer that ever saw the planet Venus in the sun, was Jeremiah Horrox, a young Englishmen, who published his tract concerning Venus, in sola visa, in the year 1639. This extraordinary youth, for he was suddenly cut off by death in the 22d year of his age, was not apprised of the great use that was afterwards to be made of this phenomenon, which led to the discovery of the parallax and distance of the sun and planets.

The transits of Venus which happened in the years 1661 and 1769, were observed with diligence and accuracy by some of the ablest astronomers in Europe, who were sent out to the most convenient parts of the earth for that purpose;

and from their determinations it appears, that the horizontal parallax of the sun is, at a mean, about 8 seconds and an half, and his distance from the earth, in round numbers, 95 millions of miles; a distance so prodigious, that a cannon ball, going at the rate of 8 miles in a minute, would be more than 22 years in travelling from our globe to the central and solar luminary of its orbit.

We have now finished the department of our lecture, which is properly to be considered as belonging to the sister planets of our system.

From the survey that we have taken of the material universe with which we are connected, we may deduce unanswerable arguments in favor of the belief which nature inculcates and revelation confirms. Every advance we make in knowledge is an approach towards the temple, in which the Creator sits enthroned in all the majesty of his power, and the beauty of his benevolence; and the more we become acquainted with his divine attributes, the nearer shall we be assimilated to the higher order of intelligences, who live in his presence, and find the consummation of their felicity in the perfection of their wisdom.

FOR THE POLYANTHOS.

THE MORAL CENSOR....No. XXI.*

SKETCHES OF EAST INDIAN LIFE, CONTINUED.

"She glorified herself and lived deliciously; and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow."

It is a melancholy reflection, that must arise in the mind of every moral Essayist, who contemplates human nature with a wish to derive pleasure and improvement from his study,

* This paper, to use the language of almanack-makers, was calculated for the meridian of Calcutta, but, with proper allowances, will answer for other places, as well.

that the most odious and contemptible of all vices, is the oftenest obtruded upon his notice. Pride, says an excellent writer, by a great mistake, is commonly taken for a greatness of soul, as if the soul were to be ennobled by a vice: for, that Pride is one of the most unpardonable of vices, I think no man can dispute. It is the base offspring of weakness, imperfection and ignorance; since, we were not weak and imperfect creatures, we should not be destitute of the knowledge of ourselves; and had we that knowledge, it were impossible we should be proud. But, on the contrary, true humility is the certain mark of a bright reason, and of an elevated soul, as being the natural consequence of them. When we come to have our minds cleared by reason, from the thick mists that our disorderly passions cast about them; when we come to discern them more perfectly, and consider more nearly, the immense power and goodness, the infinite duration and glory of God, and to make a comparison between these perfections of his, and our own frailty and weakness, and the shortness and uncertainty of our beings, we should humble ourselves even unto the dust before him. Between HIM, and his creatures, how vast, how immeasureable the distance! But, though Nature may have designed to produce her offspring as equals, custom has made a wide difference between man and man. When this difference arises from intrinsic worth, or the performance of good deeds. and important actions, we all acknowledge the justice of those artificial distinctions in society, which are at once the rewards of merit and incentives to laudable ambition. But mere titles, riches and fine houses, of themselves, signify no more to the making of one man better than another, than the finer saddle to the making of the better horse. And it truly shews a poor spirit, for one man to take these paltry advantages of another. If he be ambitious to excel his fellows, let it be in something that belongs to himself, something that demonstrates him to be a better creature; and not, like a false jewel among ignorant people, to derive a value from being set in gold. Let him contend in Virtue, which alone is capa