CHAP.

I.

Antient

Fable of

but a more magnificent sight can scarcely be conceived. The antient mythological fable of the Egg of Night resting upon Chaos may have owed its origin to a similar appearance; and it the Egg of may be observed, that this Egg was called wòv vnvéμsov, which, according to Hesychius', signifies (vérios) rainy*.

Night.

After the preceding remarks upon the First Book of his Optics, the author mentions the oval figures of the horizontal Sun and Moon.

"Since the apparent vertical diameters of the horizontal Sun and Moon (by reason of the unequal refractions of the highest and lowest rays) are much more contracted than their horizontal ones, their pictures upon the retina, and consequently their apparent figures, become oval; their longest and shortest apparent diameters being frequently as 5 to 4, (Balthasaris Micrometria, p. 101, fig. 103.) especially in the mornings, when the rays are most refracted through a colder, denser, and moister air.” Ibid.

(2) Aristophanes in Avibus, v. 692. "Sable-winged Night produced an Egg; whence sprouted up, like a blossom, Eros, the lovely and desirable, with his glossy golden wings." This subject afforded to Darwin the machinery for one of the finest passages in his poetry :

"When Love divine, with brooding wings unfurled,
Called from the rude abyss the living world—

"Let there be Light!' proclaimed the Almighty Lord,
Astonished Chaos heard the potent word;
Through all his realms the kindling Ether runs,

And the mass starts into a million suns;

Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst,

And second planets issue from the first;
Bend, as they journey with projectile force,

In bright ellipses, their reluctant course;

Orbs wheel in orbs; round centers, centers roll;
And form, self-balanced, one revolving whole :
Onward they move, amid their bright abode,
Space without bound, the bosom of their God."

(5) Ὑπηνέμιον ἄνεμον υέτιον. Hesychius.

(4) See Bryant's Mythology, vol. II. p. 352. Lond. 1774.

CHAP. This changeful scenery still continued, varying

I.

at every instant: at last there ensued a more remarkable appearance than any we had witnessed. The vapours dispersed; and all the rolling clouds disappeared, excepting a belt collected in form of a ring highly luminous around the moon, which now appeared, in a serene sky,

like the planet Saturn, augmented to a size fifty times greater than it appears through our best telescopes. The belt by which the moon's rays were reflected became beyond description splendid, and the clear sky was visible between this belt and the full fair orb which it surrounded. Certainly, if the same phænomenon had been visible in England, the whole country would have been full of it, from one extremity of our island to the other.

The effect produced by the moon's rising, considered merely as a beautiful spectacle, is often more striking than that of the sun: because, in latitudes where the sun's rising is always preceded by much twilight, its orb is more gradually introduced; but the moon, "covered with light as with a garment," bursts all at once from her obscurity. It is perhaps to this circumstance we may attribute those beautiful allusions to this planet, which are so frequent in the poetry of Northern nations'.

(1) Of which we have instances in our language that it were superfluous to mention. Two or three may be cited. The first, remarkable for its exquisite moral feeling, is from BEATTIE :

"Roll on, thou fair orb! and with gladness pursue

The path that conducts thee to splendour again :
But man's faded glory what change shall renew-
Ah fool! to exult in a triumph so vain."

Something, perhaps more pathetical, occurs in CHARLOTTE SMITH'S POEMS:
"And oft I think, Fair Planet of the night!

That in thy orb the wretched may have rest."

But, as more peculiarly applicable to the sudden display of majesty in
which the rising of the moon is here said to be characterized, there is no
passage more striking than that which BYRON, in one of his "eagle-
winged raptures," and with that "deep sense of beauty" which belongs
to all his poetry, has expressed in the finest Canto of his finest poem :-
"The Moon is up, and yet it is not night-
Sun-set divides the sky with her—a sea
Of glory streams along the alpine height
Of blue Friuli's mountains; heaven is free
From clouds, but of all colours seems to be
Melted to one vast Iris of the west,

Where the day joins the past eternity;
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest

Floats through the azure air-an island of the Blest!"

CHAP.

1.

CHAP.

I.

Unculti

vated Fruits.

In the north of Sweden, they have neither apples, pears, cherries, plums, nor any kind of fruit produced by cultivation; but Nature has been sufficiently bountiful to the inhabitants, in pouring forth a profusion of wild and delicious dainties. Among these, as the most abundant, may be mentioned no less than six species of raspberries, besides white, red, and black currants, which grow wild in all the forests. Our common raspberry appears abundantly, in a wild state, producing highly-flavoured fruit, between Torneå and Kiemi, as indeed throughout all Sweden. Wild gooseberry-trees may also be observed, but they are less common. Of the whortle-berry, they have four species, producing black or red berries. The black whortle-berry grows in such profusion, that it often covers the soil. The mouths of the children were everywhere stained by eating of those berries, at this season of the year. Of the red whortle-berries they make a conserve, by boiling them in molasses, which they eat as a sauce for meat. round the Gulph of Bothnia, the traveller, at this season of the year, will see old women and children waiting near the public roads, in hopes of meeting passengers to whom they may offer their large baskets filled with raspberries or whortle-berries. The baskets are made of birch

All

ap

I.

Forest on

fire.

tree bark. Children frequently followed our CHAP. carriage, presenting baskets of these berries. If, in return for a gallon of berries, they obtained a few pence, they endeavoured to load the carriage with more fruit; kissing our hands in gratitude, and bowing to the ground. We made tarts with the fruit we thus purchased;a use to which the inhabitants never apply it, owing probably to the scarcity of sugar. When we arrived once more at Kiemi, we found the place resounding with the shouts of stragglers from the fair. A forest on fire peared towards the north, covering all that part of the horizon with the tremendous red glare it occasioned. To the inhabitants, this sight is so common, that no attention is ever paid to it. The conflagration extended for several leagues; but by the accounts given of it by persons from that part of the country, it was at a very considerable distance. The next morning we waited Visit to the on the Clergyman, and saw his well-selected Herbarium: the specimens were in high preservation. He had also a few minerals, left by his predecessor; but they were scarcely worth notice. We then conducted young Pyppon to the fair, upon the island off the town. Here we saw assembled almost all the Torneå merchants; and, accordingly, we took leave of our friends;

Minister.