place of the planet at the time of one of these eclipses. Also, let ise represent the orbit of one of his satellites, i being the point of immersion, and e that of emersion. Now it is evident from the Figure, that when the Earth is at E before the opposition, a spectator would see the commencement of the eclipse, or the immersion, ati; but not the emersion at e; because the body of the planet will be between him and the point where the satellite issues from the shadow of the planet. And this will evidently be the case, as the planet moves in its orbit from its opposition to its conjunction. And, again, if the Earth were situated at E', the observer would see the emersion at the point e, but not the immersion at i; and this would evidently continue to be the case till the planet attained its conjunction, after which the observer would again see the opposite side of the planet; and, consequently, the immersions would become visible, and the emersions, for the same cause, be hid from his view.

The Naturalist's Diary

For NOVEMBER 1820.

The beauties of summer have vanished away,
Like volatile phantoms displayed in a dream;
And Phoebus diffuses an impotent ray,
Scarce yielding a smile to enliven the day,
Or brighten the breast of the stream.
And soon shall the forest its vesture bewail,
And valleys and hills wear an aspect forlorn;
No tremulous music shall sigh with the gale,
No flower its lustre disclose in the dale,
Nor blossom embellish the thorn.

THE gloominess of the weather in this month is proverbial: a love of nature is the refuge. He who grapples with March, and has the smiling eyes upon him of June and August, need have no fear of November,' Dr. Johnson has devoted the 12th No. of his Idler' to this subject; and although we

are not disposed entirely to deny the influence of the weather on the mind, we think that his observations are calculated to do much good with the majority of persons.

Our dispositions,' he says, 'too frequently change with the colour of the sky; and when we find ourselves cheerful and good-natured, we naturally pay our acknowledgments to the powers of sunshine; or, if we sink into dulness and peevishness, look round the horizon for an excuse, and charge our discontent upon an easterly wind or a cloudy day.

'Surely nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in dependence on the weather and the wind for the only blessings which nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevolence. To look up to the sky for the nutriment of our bodies, is the condition of nature; to call upon the sun for peace and gaiety, to deprecate the clouds lest sorrow should overwhelm us, is the cowardice of idleness and idolatry of folly.

6

Yet, even in this age of inquiry and knowledge, when superstition is driven away, and omens and prodigies have lost their terrors, we find this folly countenanced by frequent examples. Those that laugh at the portentous glare of a comet, and hear a crow with equal tranquillity from the right or left, will yet talk of times and situations proper for intellectual performances, will imagine the fancy exalted by vernal breezes, and the reason invigorated by a bright calm.

If men who have given up themselves to fanciful credulity would confine their conceits in their own minds, they might regulate their lives by the barometer, with inconvenience only to themselves; but to fill the world with accounts of intellects subject to ebb and flow, of one genius that awakened in the spring, and another that ripened in the autumn, of one mind expanded in the summer, and of another

concentrated in the winter, is no less dangerous than to tell children of bugbears and goblins. Fear will find every house haunted; and idleness will wait for ever for the moment of illumination.

This distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance every day is bright, and every hour is propitious to diligence. He that shall resolutely excite his faculties, or exert his virtues, will soon make himself superior to the seasons, and may set at defiance the morning mist, and the evening damp, the blasts of the east, and the clouds of the south.

'It was the boast of the Stoic philosophy, to make man unshaken by calamity, and unelated by success; incorruptible by pleasure, and invulnerable by pain: these are heights of wisdom which none ever attained, and to which few can aspire; but there are lower degrees of constancy necessary to common virtue; and every man, however he may distrust himself in the extremes of good or evil, might at least struggle against the tyranny of the climate, and refuse to enslave his virtue or his reason to the most variable of all variations, the changes of the weather.' With some homely lines, not altogether inappro priate, we conclude the subject.

The WEATHER.

The wise man remarks-as we all ought to know,-
"Who observeth the wind, shall not find time to sow;
And he who regardeth the clouds shall not reap,'
For doubt and dismay in his bosom shall heap;
'But at morn sow thy seed, nor at eve hold thy hand,
Nor fear but thy seed prosper well in the land','
Notwithstanding the weather, the wind and the rain,
God prospers us still, and man must not complain.
If the weather be open, 'tis good for the lambs,
And grass springs up fresh for the use of their dams;
If the snow shall descend, and be followed by sleet,
It serves to protect from the cold my young wheat;

1 Ecclesiastes xi, 4-6.
B b

If mild, then my team can go out with the plough;
In frost, they can carry manure from the mow;
And, whate'er be the weather, the wind and the rain,
I prosper in sooth, nor have cause to complain.

If dry, it is good for the corn in the field;
If wet, then my turnips the better will yield;
If the corn be less good when we happen to reap,
More plenteous the grass for the cows and the sheep;
If hot, it is better to ripen the grain;

If cloudy, my men their work better sustain ;
And, whate'er be the weather, the wind and the rain,
Still all goes on well, and I never complain.

Instead, then, of watching the clouds and the wind,
That promise most gracious I bear in my mind,
That'thro' ages, so long as the earth shall remain,
Shall seed-time require, and harvest give grain,
The cold and the heat, and the day and the night,
And summer and winter their course take aright';'
And, whate'er be the weather, the wind and the rain,
I will still trust in God, and will never complain.

The Virginia-creeper (hedera quinque-folia) is particularly rich and beautiful in the autumnal months, with its leaves of every hue, from a bright to a dark green and deep crimson.

That highly-esteemed fish, the salmon, now ascends rivers to deposit its spawn in their gravelly beds, at a great distance from their mouths.

The trees are now stripped of their foliage. See T.T. for 1818, p. 294. On the decay and fall of the leaf, see also T.T. for 1817, p. 333, and in the Naturalist's Diary, for October and November, in our former volumes. A popular description of Forest Trees, alphabetically arranged, at the close of the different months, will be found in T.T. for 1816.

TREES in AUTUMN.

Alas! their splendour does but mark their fall,
Such is, and e'er shall be the lot of all;

Soon the north winds th' neighbouring vales shall fill

With branchy spoils from every tow'ring hill:

The leaves by fits too, strewn upon the ground,

May rouse the wanderer from his thoughts profound;

Genesis viii, 22.

Yet still for me these ruins have their charms,
And, if some fond regret my soul alarms,
With nature's grief I love to mix my own,

Well pleased to stray amidst these scenes alone;
And whilst I on their leafy honours tread,
The days of vanity and folly fled,

Let me to musing melancholy bring

A tribute equal to the sprightly spring;

Not her whose cloud-wrapped brow is mixed with storms,
Or angry lightnings which her face deforms;
But her who through her misty veil we trace,
When lovely Autumn shews each softer grace,
With pensive looks, calm front, and dewy eyes,
That sober sympathy to all supplies.

DELILLE.

The stock-dove (columba anas), one of the latest winter birds of passage, arrives from more northern regions, towards the end of this month. The females and young of the brown or Norway rat now leave their holes at the sides of ponds and rivers, to which they had betaken themselves in the spring, and repair to barns, out-houses, corn-stacks, and dwellings. See T.T. for 1817, p. 338. Moles now make their nests, in which they lodge during the winter, and which are ready for depositing their young in the spring. These are distinguished by being of a larger size than the common mole-hill, and are lined with dried grass, leaves, &c.

The woodman now repairs to the woodlands to fell coppices, underwood, and timber. Some particulars of forest scenery, in this month, are noticed in T.T. for 1818, p. 297.

Violent storms of wind are not uncommon in October and November; the partial injury which they occasion is amply compensated by the benefits derived from them, in purifying the atmosphere.

Winds from all quarters agitate the air,
And fit the limpid element for use,

Else noxious. Oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams,
All feel the fresh'ning impulse, and are cleansed

By restless undulation. E'en the oak

Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm.