fancy, or his beautiful descriptions of the celestial orbs,
it is apparent that in this domain of science, as a poet, he stands
alone and without a rival. In his choice of the Ptolemaic cosmology
Milton adopted a system with which he had been familiar from his
youth--the same which his favourite poet Dante introduced into his poem,
'The Divina Commedia,' and which was well adapted for poetic
description. The picturesque conception of ten revolving spheres,
carrying along with them the orbs assigned to each, which, by their
revolution round the steadfast Earth, brought about with unfailing
regularity the successive alternation of day and night, and in every
twenty-four hours exhibited the pleasing vicissitudes of dawn, of
sunshine, of twilight, and of darkness, relieved by the soft effulgence
of the nocturnal sky, afforded Milton a favourable basis upon which to
construct a cosmical epic. The Copernican theory--with which he was
equally conversant, and in the accuracy and truthfulness of which he
believed--though less complicated than the Ptolemaic in its details, did
not possess the same attractiveness for poetic description that belonged
to the older system. According to this theory there is, surrounding us
on all sides, a boundless uncircumscribed ocean of space, to which it is
impossible to assign any conceivable limit; in every effort to
comprehend its dimensions or fathom its depths, the mind recoils upon
itself, baffled and discomfited, with a conscious feeling that there can
be no nearer approach to the end when end there is none that can be
conceived of. Interspersed throughout the regions of this azure vast of
space is the stellar universe, which to our comprehension is as infinite
as the abyss in which it exists. The solar system, though of magnificent
dimensions, is but a unit in the astronomical whole, in which are
embraced millions of other similar units--other solar systems, perhaps
differing in construction from that of ours, with billions of miles of
interstellar space intervening between each; yet so vast are the
dimensions of the celestial sphere that those distances when measured
upon it sink into utter insignificance. As the receding depths of space
are penetrated by powerful telescopes, they are found to be pervaded
with stars and starry archipelagoes, distributed in profusion over the
circular immensity and extending away into abysmal depths, beyond the
reach of visibility by any optical means which