from the observation of Nature, and that not only in her greatest and most stupendous works, but in those which are so wonderfully minute as to be imperceptible by the naked eye. For it is not alone in the radiant orbs above, in their astonishing magnitude, and regular order, that the Deity is conspicuous, but in the beautiful structure and colours of a flower or a leaf, in the parts and conformation of the minutest insect, and of those infinite varieties of animalcules, which are the object of microscopic vision.

In the 148th Psalm, not only the angelic choirs, and the whole human race, but even the celestial bodies, and all the inanimate world below, are exhorted, by a noble prosopopoeia to praise their great Creator: Praise ye the Lord in the heavens : praise him in the heights. Praise ye him all his angels; praise ye him all his hosts. Praise ye him sun and moon; praise him all ye stars of light. Praise him ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters that are above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord; for he commanded, and they were creaated.'-Not that the celestial bodies, senseless and inanimate as they are, can utter the stupendous praise of their Creator, but that they incessantly exhibit the most magnificent display of his attri butes and perfections. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work. When these therefore, are exhorted to praise God, nothing more can be understood, than that Man, whom he made to look erect, and taught alone to contemplate the skies', should incessantly

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1 Os homini sublime dedit: coelumque tueri Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. OVID.

He with a lofty look did man endue,

And bade him heav'n's transcendent beauties view,

SANDYS

seek him in those glorious manifestation of omnipotent energy and influence; should consider him in those unnumbered effects of infinite wisdom, their prodigious dimensions, their regular motions and periods, their admirable disposition and order, and their eminent uses in illuminating and enlivening the planets and other bodies around them, as well as their respective inhabitants, by the vivifying and cheering influence of their light and heat; and, in fine, should ascribe to God the glory of his power in making such great and illustrious bodies, as well as the glory of his wisdom and goodness, in placing and disposing them in such a manner, and ordering their motions with such invariable regularity, that they never clash nor interfere with each other.

Nor are the contemplations of man confined to the resplendent orbs on high. By the same figure of speech he is invited to the study of universal Nature:

Praise ye the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps: fire and hail, snow and vapour, stormy wind fulfilling his word; mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle, creeping things, and flying fowl.'—We do not resolve this exhortation into the mere beauty and boldness of poetical decoration. Fire, hail, snow, the elements and meteors; the trees and other plants; the beasts, birds, insects, and other tribes of animated nature, with whatever degrees of sense and perception the latter are endued, are in themselves incapable of praising the Divine Being. When they, therefore, are exhorted to praise God, we are to understand that Man is commanded to investigate their various properties and powers; to consider their curious structure and conformation, with the admirable ends for which they were created, and to ascribe that glory, in course, to the beneficent Creator, which such wonderful displays of goodness,

wisdom, and power, must naturally demand: Kings of the earth, and all people; princes and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens, old men and children; let them praise the name of the Lord for his name alone is excellent, his glory is above the earth and heaven?'

It must not here be unnoticed, that the pious author of this Psalm calls upon insects also, those minuter creatures, to join in the universal hymn: intimating thus, that what may seem in our eyes to be the meanest and most contemptible part of the creation, can afford subjects of admiration and devotion to the pious and contemplative inquirer: for there can be nothing which the Deity has condescended to create, which is, in any respect, unworthy the attention of man. The works of Nature are no less wonderful in the smallest than in the largest bodies. We may discover in the former, as well as in the latter, a kind of infinite, that at once astonishes and confounds. How wonderful to find in a ringworm, as in an elephant or a whale, members perfectly organized; to discover a head, a body, legs, and feet, like those of the largest animals! In each part of these living atoms are muscles, nerves, veins, arteries, and blood. This blood is furnished with spirits, ramified parts, and humours. The humours again are made up of various particles; so that thought is lost in tracing the progression of a composition so infinitely minute. In a word, the more accurate our inquiries into this subject, the greater reason shall we have for assenting to the propriety of the observation, that the Supreme Being is, indeed, maximus in minimis-the greatest in the least.'

The microscope displays to us, in each object, as it were, a thousand others which escaped our knowledge. Yet, in every object discovered by

this instrument, others still remain unseen, which the microscope itself can never produce. What wonders should we see if we could continually improve those glasses, which are invented for the assistance of our rude and feeble sight! But we may supply, by our imagination the defect of our eyes, and make it serve as a microscope to represent in each atom a thousand new and invisible worlds. It cannot, however, incessantly figure to us new discoveries in bodies so infinitely small. The task would be too painful. It is necessary that the imagination should stop its inquiries, and leave, in the minutest organ, a thousand wonders undiscovered still. Let it suffice, that a single glance will enable us to discover in a small animal, even in an ant, more than we can find in the sun; a wisdom and power delighting to show itself in forming and finishing the meanest of its works.

Myriads of creatures (each too nicely small
Bare sense to reach) for thy inspection call.
In animalcules, germs, seeds, and flowers
Live, in their perfect shapes, the little pow'rs.
Vast trees lie pictured in their slend'rest grains:
Armies one wat'ry globule contains.

The artificial convex will reveal

The forms diminutive that each conceal;
Some, so minute, that, to their fine extreme,
The mite a vast leviathan will seem:

That yet of organs, functions, sense partake,
Equal with animals of largest make,
In curious limbs and clothing they surpass
By far the comeliest of the bulky mass.
A world of beauties! that thro' all their frame,
Creation's grandest miracles proclaim.

* * * * *

Search the least path Creative Pow'r has trod
How plain the footsteps of th' apparent God!

Some of these amazing instruments magnify the cube, or solid square of an object, above 500 millions of times. Those viewed by the solar microscope may be extended toalmost any dimensions.

His art could organs, strength, and sense implant
In the small agile fly and reptile ant.

In the mean mite, so much minuter still,
Thy finger's pressing point may millions kill.
Marked by the magnifying crystal's aid,

In ev'ry place what proofs will stand displayed!
Lo! from the stagnant pool one drop obtain ;
Of insects this includes a sumless train:

Buoyed in the little pool they frisk and play,
Pleased with their short existence of a day.
That blue with which the glossy plum is graced,
That gives such poignant pleasure to its taste,
Or azures o'er the damson's velvet rind,

A

group of smallest animals we find.

The little gnat, in beauties, may compare
With all his rival brothers of the air;

Transparent feathers, purple, green, and gold,
His wings, small feet, and gay-fringed tail infold;
Four sharpened spears his head with weapons arm,
And his pearled eyes with liveliest graces charm.

*

Thy microscopic glass admiring bring,

And view the humble hornet's sharpened sting;
Then on the slend'rest needle turn thy eye,
And the vast difference in their points descry:
This viewed, more polished seems, acuter far;
That, rough as from the forge some blunted bar.
God's smallest work all human skill degrades,
Foils the lost man, and sinks his worth in shades.

M. BROWNE.

By the microscope, indeed, we are enabled to perceive, that the minutest works of Nature are adorned with the most consummate elegance and beauty. There are such inimitable gildings and embroideries in the smallest seeds of plants, but especially in the parts of animals, in the head and eye of a small fly; such accurate symmetry, more

These are composed of several hundred little hemispheres, or, in reality, so many distinct eyes; which have such a power of magnifying, and are of such a wonderful structure, in numbers of the minutest insects, that they are capable of discovering objects, many thousand times less than themselves.