"Dreft by her cleanly hand, afford
"A pleasant banquet to her lord.
"To fhare in fuch a rich repaft,
"With me is equal to the tafte
"Of oysters or of turbots rare,

Or the high flavour of the char,
"That in the winter's thund'ring reign
"The tempeft drives into our main.
"No pheafant, and no Afric bird
"In luxury can be preferr'd
"To olives at the gath'ring time,
"And of the fruitful boughs the prime ;
"Or herbs that in the plains abound,
"Or in the filver brooks are found,
"And furnish'd with the double good
"Of wholsome phyfic, wholfome food;
"Or to the lamb, fuch as we flay
"Upon fome confecrated day;

"Or kid, which fome bold fhepherd draws
"From the wolf's difappointed jaws.
"Amidft his high delicious feast,
"How are the yeoman's joys increas'd
"To fee his flocks from pafture come,
"Bleating for their nocturnal home;
"To fee his wearied oxen bear

"On their worn necks th' inverted share ;
"To fee his flaves, a cluft'ring fwarm,
"Whofe faithful toils enrich his farm,

"At ease reclining round his hearth,

"While the Gods fmile, and fhare the mirth!"

Thus the fam'd griper ALPHIUS fung,

His heart confenting with his tongue,

And, quitting his ufurious plan,

Refolv'd to be a countryman,

The

The ode of CASIMIRE is as follows, intitled, The Praifes of facred Leifure:

Yet, HORACE, happier ftill is he,
Who, from the weight of labour free,
Has quitted his paternal farm,
Stranger to ftrife and all alarm.

He fears not left his corn fhould die,
Smitten by Sirius' burning eye;
Unanxious he left ftorms fhould tear,
And wafe the harveft of the year.
His hours ferenely glide afar
From the vexations of the bar,

Where blackest crimes are rob'd with white,
And the law tramples upon right.

Now he laments terreftrial things

So long have clogg'd the fpirit's wings,
So oft reftrain'd its heav'nly flight,
And commerce with the worlds of light;
Or now in fome fequefter'd vale,
(First weighing in a faithful fcale
The joys that confcience can impart
In 'holy filence to the heart)

His thoughts, too long inur'd to roam
In fruitless tours, he orders home..
He too when night refumes her reign,
And Vefper leads the ftarry train,
Kindling all heav'n with sparkling fires,
Th' immeafurable arch admires;
Where in their pomp of radiant gold,
Unnumber'd globes at large are roll'd,
In magnitudes that far furpass
The world's material mighty mafs:

And

And now inquifitive to find

If other globes are not behind,
Or fome bright wonders undefcry'd,

His tube is to the heav'ns appli’d.

Struck with amazement, he furveys

From num'rous chafms † the peerless blaze

Of

What the Poet intends by the rimosa lucis atria, or the courts of light that appear in chinks or chasms, the Translator pretends not to determine. Poffibly CASIMIRE might, according to the licence that may be granted to the Lyric muse, confider the stars as so many apertures into regions of glory that lie beyond them, and fo call them rimofa lucis atria; but, whatever was the Author's meaning, the Tranflator has taken occafion to infert in his verfion fome difcoveries that have been made in the heavens, and of which he will present the Reader with an account from the Abridgment of the Philofophical Tranfactions by Mr MARTYN, vol. viii. part 1. p. 132. in the mar gin of which page it is thus written, Obfervations of the Appearances among the Fixed Stars, called Nebulous Stars, by W. DERHAM, D.D. Canon of Windsor, F. R. S. The account is as follows.

"These appearances in the heavens have borne the name "of Nebulous Stars; but neither are they stars, nor fuch bo"dies as emit, or reflect light, as the fun, moon, and stars do ; "nor are they congeries or clusters of stars, as the Milky Way ; "but whitish area, like a collection of mifty vapours, whence "they have their name.

"There are many of them dispersed about in divers parts "of the heavens. There is a catalogue of them in HEVE"LIUS's Prodromus Aftronomia, which may be of good ufe to "fuch as are minded to enquire into them.

"Befides thefe, Dr HALLEY hath mentioned one in Orion's "fword; another in Sagittary; a third in the Centaur (never "feen in England); a fourth preceding the right foot of An"tinous; a fifth in Hercules; and that in Andromeda's girdle.

Of the empyrean coafts, that lie
Beyond the concave of this sky,

Though

"Five of these fix I have carefully viewed with my excellent eight foot reflecting Telescope, and find them to be phenomena much alike; all except that preceding the right "foot of Antinous, which is not a nebulose, but a cluster of flars, "fomewhat like that which is in the Milky Way.

66

"Between the other four I find no material difference, only "fome are rounder, fome of a more oval form, without any "fixed ftars in them to cause their light; only that in Orion "hath fome ftars in it visible only with the Telescope, but

by no means fufficient to caufe the light of the nebulofa there. But by these stars it was that I first perceived the "distance of the nebulosa to be greater than that of the fixed "ftars, and put me upon enquiring into the rest of them

;

every one of which I could very vifibly and plainly difcern "to be at immenfe distances beyond the fixed ftars near them, "whether vifible to the naked eye, or Telescopic only; yea,

66

they seemed to be as far beyond the fixed ftars, as any of "thofe ftars are from the earth,

"And now from this relation of what I have obferved from very good and frequent views of the nebulofe, I conclude "them certainly not to be lucid bodies, that fend their light to

46

us, as the fun and moon; neither are they the combined light of clusters of flars, like that of the Milky Way. But I take "them to be valt aree, or regions of light, infallibly beyond the fixed ftars, and devoid of them. I fay regions, meaning fpaces of a vaft extent, large enough to appear of such a fize as they do to us, at fo great a diftance as they are from us. "And fince thofe fpaces are devoid of stars, and even that "in Orion itself hath its ftars bearing a very small proportion "to its nebulofe, and they are vifibly not the cause of it, I "leave it to the great fagacity and penetration of this illuftrious fociety to judge whether thefe nebulofa are particular spaces of light; or rather, whether they may not, in all probabi. lity, be chasms or openings into an immenfe region of light

"beyond

68

Though in its arch uncrowded roll

The countless orbs that gild the pole.

With

beyond the fixed stars: because I find in this opinion most "of the learned in all ages (both Philofophers, and I may add

Divines too) thus far concurred, that there was a region be"yond the ftars. Thofe that imagined there were cryftalline or "folid orbs, thought a cælum empyræum was beyond them, and "the primum mobile; and they that maintained there were no "fuch orbs, but that the heavenly bodies floated in the æther, imagined that the starry region was not the bounds of the univerfe, but that there was a region beyond that, which they called the third region, and third heaven.

"

To conclude thefe remarks; it may be of use to take "notice, that in HEVELIUS's Nebulofa fome feem to be more large and remarkable than others; but whether they are really fo, or no, I confess I have not had an opportunity to "fee, except that in Andromeda's girdle, which is as confidera"ble as any I have feen. In the maps of the conftellations, "the most remarkable are the three near the eye of Capricorn ;

that in Hercules's foot; that in the third joint of Scorpio's "tail; and that between Scorpio's tail, and the bow of Sagit66 tary. But if any one is defirous to have a good view of

thefe or any other of the nebulafe, it is abfolutely neceffary "that he fhould make ufe of very good glaffes, elte all his la"bour would be in vain, as i have found by experience."

It may not be improper to obferve upon this account given by the very ingenious Dr DERHAM, that if the fixed ftars, as they are known to be, are at an amazing distance from our earth; and if these bright spaces that have been mentioned, are at a like aftonishing diftance from the fixed ftars; and if thefe lucid area, thus, I had almoft said, infinitely remote from us, are but the glimmerings of light, through what are only chinks and chafms, into thefe fuburbs, if I may fo call them, of the univerfe from a region of glory that lies beyond, and encompaffes the convexity of the ftupendous round of the ftarry heavens, in a like manner as a sphere

U 3

of