fresh jump--and who can say it will be the last?

One of the most beautiful objects in the southern hemisphere is a
pretty large, perfectly round, and very well-defined planetary nebula,
of a fine, full _independent_ blue colour--the only object I have ever
seen in the heavens fairly entitled to be called _independently_ blue,
_i.e._, not by contrast. Another superb and most striking object is
Lacaille's 30 Doradus, a nebula of great size in the larger nubicula,
of which it is impossible to give a better idea than to compare it to a
"true lover's knot," or assemblage of nearly circular nebulous loops
uniting in a centre, in or near which is an exactly circular round dark
hole. Neither this nor the nebula about [Greek: e] Argus have any, the
slightest, resemblance to the representations given of them by
Dunlop.... As you are so kind as to offer to obtain information on any
points interesting to me at Rome, here is one on which I earnestly
desire to obtain the means of forming a correct opinion, _i.e._, the
_real_ powers and merits of De Vico's great refractor at the Collegio
Romano. De Vico's accounts of it appear to me to have not a little of
the extra-marvellous in them. Saturn's _two_ close satellites regularly
observed--eight stars in the trapezium of Orion! [Greek: a] Aquilae (as
Schumacher inquiringly writes to me) divided into three! the
supernumerary divisions of Saturn's ring well seen, &c., &c. And all by
a Cauchoix refractor of eight inches? I fear me that these wonders are
not for _female eyes_, the good monks are too well aware of the
penetrating qualities of such optics to allow them entry within the
seven-fold walls of their Collegio. Has Somerville ever looked through
it? On his report I know I could quite rely. As for Lord Rosse's great
reflector, I can only tell you what I hear, having never seen it, or
even his three feet one. The great one is not yet completed. Of the
other, those who _have_ looked through it speak in raptures. I met not
long since an officer who, at Halifax in Nova Scotia, saw _the comet_
at noon close to the sun, and very conspicuous the day after the
perihelion passage.

Your account of the pictures and other _deliciae_ of Venice makes our
mouths water; but it is of no use, so we can only congratulate those
who are in the full enjoyment of such thin