They never could bring down to the reach of man's unaided vision a single star that Noah could not see through the deck-lights of the ark.

It was a gift and a glory that well rewarded the science and genius of Newton and Herschel, of Adams and Le Verrier, that they could ladder these mighty perpendicular distances and climb the rounds to such heights and sweeps of observation, and count, measure, and name orbs and orbits before unknown, and chart the paths of their rotations and weigh them, as in scales, while in motion.

But this ge-astronomer, whose observatory is his conservatory, whose telescope and fluxions are his trowel and watering-pot, not only brings to light the hidden life of a thousand earth-stars, but changes their forms, colors their rays, half creates and transforms, until each differs as much from its original structure and tinting as the planet Jupiter would differ from its familiar countenance if Adams or Le Verrier could make it wear the florid face of Mars.

This man,--and it is to be hoped he carries some devout and grateful thoughts to his work--sets Nature new lessons daily in artistry, and she works out the new ideals of his taste to their joint and equal admiration.

He has got up a new pattern for the fern.