extremity of cruelty and insult with calmness and dignity, unsullied by impotent rage or vengeful feelings, then Marie Antoinette was the most heroic of women. The faults of her youth were the exotic fruits of her training and early associations; the virtues of her last days were the natural fruits of her soul. She was coquettish, because she was beautiful beyond her sex. Reared in the faith of the divine right of kings, she clung hard to prerogative, and counselled her weak-minded husband to many irritating and injudicious acts. Ignorant of the value of money, she expended extravagantly, when economy meant national salvation; but her purse was emptied as freely to relieve the distresses of the people as to enrich her favorites or to minister to her own pleas ures. A heart full of fire, gayety, and animal spirits, led her into sad indiscretions, but no guilt. But in her days of tribulation, never was mother more tender, more loving, more devoted; never was wife more faithful unto death; never was woman more sublimely courageous; never was Christian more long-suffering and more forgiving of injuries.

The death of Marie Antoinette consummated the Revolution. Has that awful work of blood affected the destinies of the human race for good or evil? To France it bequeathed the Reign of Terror and a military despotism, that strewed the fields of Europe with a million corpses; a constantly recurring action and reaction, tending ever to the extremes of riot or absolutism; an impatience of wholesome authority, and a spirit of insubordination which culminated in the disasters of the Franco-Prussian war-in the Commune, that hideous burlesque of '92, which has 'laid Paris in ashes. These are the blessings it bequeathed to France.

We are repeatedly told that to the French Revolution we are indebted for the advance of modern thought and freedom. But to assert this is to confound cause and effect. Modern thought and modern theories of civil and religious freedom were fully developed in the pages of Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire, Bailly, and the Encyclopædists years before the convocation of the States-General. The Revolution was but an effect of those causes from which new effects are daily developing. It is impossible, within the limits of a magazine article, to argue so vast a

question; I can only assert, and leave it to the reader's own reflections to verify or reject my position.

To ignore the stimulus given to modern progress by the events of the last decade of the eighteenth century would be absurd. But the stimulus was unhealthy, evanescent-the stimulus of a debauch, which was succeeded by reaction and torpidity. It did not emancipate the serfs of Russia or soften the rigors of Siberia. Austria and Prussia did not cease to be absolute monarchies; religious freedom did not arise in Spain and Portugal; Poland remained crushed under the heels of her oppressors. What of England? A few riots, and a few mob orations, which simply produced retrogression, and the results are told. England did not need, nor ever will need, any fillip from French republicanism to advance her progress. For tradition, she has her own revolutions to fall back upon; the nation that can boast of Hampden and Cromwell needs no inspiration from the foreigner. Added to which, our own elastic, self-developing institutions, are the surest guarantees of our ever-advancing political freedom.

America, not France, has been the propagandist of democracy, and has instituted the only successful republic of ancient or modern times-a republic of which the foundations have been cemented by no unrighteously spilled blood, nor undermined by fantastic social theories; a republic founded on reason, on the unalterable principles of humanity, neither twisted nor forced from their natural channels to harmonize with individual ideas; on the purely normal development of certain conditions of society and their only practical solution. American republicanism means the advancement of the human race French republicanism its destruction. Commerce and the arts of peace are the weapons of the one; fire and sword are the weapons of the other.

It is blaspheming heaven to suppose that aught of good could arise from the hideous holocaust of the first Revolution. From the hour she gave herself up to its bloody frenzy, France has been accursed; the restless fever of a demoniac has coursed through her veins, howling, rending, ravening, for she knows not what. Never calm unless an iron hand is upon her throat-an iron heel upon her body. She is acting over again the history of

Rome's last days. Her society is utterly Her society is utterly corrupt-her soldiers utterly demoralized; the German hordes have dictated to her the terms of a disgraceful peace; her capital is a wreck, the parricidal work of her own hands; and her people are feasting and revelling, gay and sans souci as it, were, amongst the ruins of her glory.

Faction is still rife in her counsels; over her prostrate body Monarchists, Bonapartists, Republicans, and Reds, snarl and contend, not for the substance, but the form of government. Possessed by his idea, no man thinks of his country: let her perish, so that she falls enveloped in the winding-sheet of his creed.

AMONG the many startling suggestions recently thrown out by men of science, not one, perhaps, has seemed more amazing to the general public than the idea put forward by Sir W. Thomson in the able address with which he inaugurated the last meeting of the British Association -that life on the earth may have had its origin from seeds borne to our planet by meteors, the remnants of former worlds. Coupling this startling theory with the partly-admitted view that the tails of comets and comets themselves consist of meteoric flights, he presented the "hairy stars" which men so long viewed with terror in a somewhat novel light. Regarded not so many years ago as probably the vehicles of the Almighty's wrath, comets are made by this new hypothesis to appear as the parents of universal life. How would Whiston, and those who thought with him that a comet in old times effected the destruction of all living things (save a chosen few) with water, and that a comet at perhaps no very distant future would destroy the whole earth with fire, have contemplated a theory according to which the seed-bearing fragments of a comet's tail peopled the earth with all the living things which at present exist upon its surface? The "fear of change" with which in old times comets perplexed the nations must be replaced, it would seem, by another sort of fear. We need not dread the approaching dissolution of the world through cometic agency, though the thought of a vast catastrophe may be suggested by the consideration that we see in the comet but the fragments of another world. But, if this new theory should be accepted, we have reason to regard with apprehension the too close approach of one of these visitants; because, if one comet supplied the seeds of the living things now existing on the world, another

may supply myriads of seeds of undesirable living things; and mayhap the sequent struggle for life may not result in the survival of the fittest.

It is hardly necessary for me to say, perhaps, that I am not troubled by such misgivings. I can scarcely bring myself to believe, indeed, that the eminent professor was serious in urging his hypothesis of seed-bearing meteors. Englishmen speak sometimes of the slowness with which a Scotsman apprehends a jest; but the Scotsman may return the compliment -so far, at least, as the Southern estimate of Scottish humor is concerned. For a true Scot makes his jests with a gravity and aplomb unequalled among Sassenach humorists. It is far from improbable that the seriousness with which the seed bearing meteorites have been discussed proved infinitely amusing to the gathering of the clans in Edinburgh. Thomson and Tait, Andrews and Geikie, Stewart and Lockyer, in fine, all the Scottish men of science who were present at the gathering, may be ready to retort Sydney Smith's gibe, maintaining henceforth that nothing short of a surgical operation will enable an Englishman to appreciate Scottish humor.

For it will be noticed that the explanation of the origin of life upon our globe leaves the real question of the origin of life where it was. The theory, in this respect, resembles that undoubtedly humorous account which the Hindoo sages gave of the manner in which our earth is supported; and precisely as the Hindoo student of science might ask how the tortoise who supports the earth is himself supported, so may we ask how the worlds which, by bursting, supplied space with seedbearing meteors, were themselves peopled with living things. This circumstance of itself throws an air of doubt over the new hypothesis, as a seriously-intended ac

count of the origin of life on our earth. It may seem superfluous to add that in a collision by which a world was shivered into fragments the seeds of life would have what may be described as a warm time, since the collision could hardly fail to vaporize the destroyed world. The fiery heat generated by the collision, followed by a voyage during myriads of millions of ages through the inconceivable cold of space, and, lastly, by the fierce heat which accompanies the fall of meteoric masses upon our earth, would seem so unfavorable to the germs of life, that Pouchet himself might accept with confidence the belief that all such germs had been completely destroyed before reaching this planet.

But while the theory of seed-bearing meteors can hardly be regarded as a complete solution of the perplexing problem of the origin of life, the facts to which the eminent Scottish professor referred while discussing it are of singular interest and importance. The whole history of recent scientific research into the subject of the relation between meteors and comets is full of instruction. To the readers of this magazine that history will be in great part familiar, because, in the number for November, 1869, a paper by the present writer appeared, in which a popular account was given of the researches of Schiaparelli, Adams, Leverrier, and those other men of science who have placed meteoric astronomy in its present position. I propose here, therefore, to take for granted many of the conclusions dealt with in my former paper. This will enable me to discuss with greater freedom, as regards space, the views respecting. comets, and more especially respecting cometic appendages, which seem to be suggested by observed phenomena, taken in connection with the association recently recognized between comets and meteors. The subject is as yet too new for the enunciation of definite theories, and far less can we safely dogmatize respecting it. But much has been established which will well bear careful investigation, and I believe that the conclusions which may be fairly deduced from observations already made are much more important than is commonly supposed.

The phenomena presented by comets. have long perplexed astronomers. Setting aside the fact that the head of a comet

strictly obeys the law of gravitation, there is scarcely one known fact respecting comets which astronomers have succeeded in interpreting to their satisfaction. The facts recently ascertained, striking and important though they undoubtedly are, yet not only fail to explain the phenomena of comets, but are absolutely more perplexing than any which had before come to light. The present position of cometic astromony is, in fact, this :-Many facts are known, and many others may be inferred; but these facts have yet to be combined in such a way as to afford a consistent theory respecting comets.

It is now known that the comets which are so brilliant as to attract general notice are but a few among those which actually approach the earth. The telescope detects each year (with scarcely an exception) more than one comet. It is probable, indeed, that if systematic search were diligently made, many comets would be detected yearly.* Already, however, nearly seven hundred comets have been discovered, of which by far the greater number have been the reward of modern telescopic research.

Of observed comets, only the more brilliant are adorned with tails of considerable length. But nearly all comets show, during their approach towards the sun, a certain lengthening of their figure, corresponding to the change which, in the case of larger comets, precedes the formation of a tail. So that a tail may be regarded as a normal, or at least a natural, appendage of comets--though special conditions may be requisite for the evolution of the appendage. This will appear the more probable when the fact is noted that, in all cases where a tail is formed, this tail appears as an extension of the part of the head known as the coma or hair-the fainter light surrounding the nucleus of the comet-and no comet has ever appeared without showing a coma during one period or another of its exist

ence.

Commonly, the coma continues visible as long as the comet itself can be discerned, though there have been instances in which the comet seems to have been shorn of its hair; and, in one noteworthy instance, a comet of considerable

* A prize has been offered to the astronomer or telescopist who shall first succeed in discovering eight comets within the year.

In the earliest ages of the history of our subject, the fact was noted that the tails of comets commonly lie in the direction opposite to the place of the sun. Appian, indeed, was the first European astronomer who observed this peculiarity, but M. Biot has succeeded in proving that the discovery had been made long before by Chinese astronomers.

If the tail of a comet strictly obeyed this rule, if it were always directed in a perfectly straight line from the sun's place, the peculiarity might admit perhaps of a tolerably simple explanation. This, however, is not in general the case; in fact, I do not know of a single instance in which a comet's tail has extended exactly in the direction of a line from the sun throughout the tail's whole length. The tail of an approaching comet generally seems to bend towards the track along which the comet has recently passed, and the effect, when the tail is long, is to give the appendage a slight curvature. To cite only one instance out of many, it will be sufficient to refer to the splendid comet which appeared in 1858, and was known as Donati's. Soon after the first appearance of the tail a slight curvature could be recognized in the appendage; and this curvature became gradually more and more conspicuous, until, to use Sir John Herschel's words, the tail "assumed at length that superb aigrette-like form, like a tall plume wafted by the breeze, which has never probably formed so conspicuous a feature in any previous

comet."

Here is a peculiarity which at once serves to dispose of the theory according to which the tail of a comet is to be compared to a beam of light such as a lantern throws amid darkness. The theory seems

should be more brilliantly illuminated than others, nor how the particles come to be there at all. Despite these and other difficulties, the "negative shadow" theory, as it has been called, has been again and again urged, though only to be again and again refuted.

Let it be noted, however, before other peculiarities are considered, that the curvature of comets' tails is no argument against the ingenious theory by which Professor Tyndall has endeavored to explain their direction from the sun. According to this theory, the passage of light through and beyond the head of the comet is the real cause to which the appearance of the tail is to be ascribed. But a physical process is supposed to occur as the light traverses the region behind the comet; and the rate at which this process takes place need not necessarily correspond to the enormous velocity with which light travels. So that, instead of the whole tail being exactly in a straight line with the head and the sun, as it must be (appreciably) if the phenomenon were a mere luminous track, the end of the tail (the part formed earliest) would lie in the direction of a solar ray through the place occupied some time earlier by the head. This, in fact, corresponds somewhat closely with observed appearances; and so far Professor Tyndall's theory receives undoubted support from recognized facts.

Indeed, we seem almost driven to the conclusion that some such action as Tyndall has conceived takes place in the formation of a comet's tail-that either light, or electricity, or some swiftly travelling cause, is at work-by the marvellous rapidity with which in some instances the tail of a comet has seemingly changed its position. The comet of 1680, commonly known as Newton's comet, affords a re

markable instance of this. I take the following narrative from Sir John Herschel's "Familiar Lectures," article "Comets," noting that the student of the subject, and especially the student of those theories which have of late been advanced respect

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ing comets, would do well to study that paper carefully, as well as the chapter on Halley's Comet" in Herschel's volume on his Cape observations :-" The comet passed its perihelion (that is, the point of its course nearest to the sun) on December 8, and when nearest to the sun was only one-sixth of the sun's diameter from his surface"-travelling at the rate of 1,200,000 miles an hour. "Now observe one thing," says Herschel; "the distance from the sun's centre was about one-160th part of our distance from it. All the heat we enjoy on this earth comes from the sun. Imagine the heat we should have to endure if the sun were to approach us, or we the sun, to one-160th part of its present distance. It would not be merely as if 160 suns were shining on us all at once, but 160 times 160, according to a rule which is well known to all who are conversant with such matters. Now that is 25,600. Only imagine a glare 25,600 times fiercer than that of an equatorial sunshine at noonday, with the sun vertical. And again, only conceive a light 25,600 times more glaring than the glare of such a noonday! In such a heat there is no substance we know of which would not run like water,-boil,-and be converted into smoke or vapor. No wonder the comet gave evidence of violent excitement, coming from the cold region outside the planetary system, torpid and icebound. Already, when arrived even in our temperate region, it began to show signs of internal activity; the head had begun to develop and the tail to elongate till the comet was for a time lost sight of. No human eye beheld the wondrous spectacle it must have afforded on the 8th December. Only four days afterwards, however, it was seen; and its tail, whose direction was reversed, and which, observe, could not possibly be the same tail it had before-(for it is not to be conceived as a stick brandished round, or a flaming sword, but fresh matter continually streaming forth)—its tail, I say, had already lengthened to an extent of about ninety millions of miles, so that it must have been shot out with immense force in a direction from the sun, a force far greater than that with which the sun acted on and controlled the head of the comet itself, which, as the reader will have observed, took from November 10 to December 8, or twenty-eight days, to fall to the sun from the same distance, and

that with all the velocity it had on November 10 to start with."

My readers will doubtless remember that in his address to the British Association Sir W. Thomson referred to the above passage, with the express object of commending the simplicity with which a theory lately suggested by Professor Tait seems to explain all the facts referred to by Sir John Herschel. According to this theory the tail of a comet consists of a multitude of meteors, travelling in a sort of flat flight, like sea-birds; and the seemingly rapid extension of a comet's tail is not due to the rapid projection of matter in the direction from the sun, but merely to a shifting of our position with respect to the level of the meteoric flight. Precisely as a flight of birds, scarcely visible when its level is slanted, may become visible along its entire length when the level is turned edgewise towards the observer, so a change of the earth's position, bringing her near the level of a meteoric flight, might cause the whole length of the flight to become visible, and thus an appendage of the nature of a tail might seem

to

grow with inconceivable rapidity, although in reality it had existed with the same degree of extension before it became visible to us.

This theory-to which, says Professor Thomson, the name of "the sea-bird analogy" has been given-has not yet found a place in treatises on astronomy; and with all deference to its author, I would submit that astronomers are not to be blamed for rejecting it. Its simplicity is great, no doubt; but its adequacy to account for cometic phenomena may be more than questioned. It seems barely equal to account for the visibility of a comet's tail, account being had of the enormous number of metors which would be required that the reflected light might be recognizable even when the flight was seen edgewise. But it offers no explanation whatever of the direction in which comet's tails are commonly seen-still less of the generally observed curvature of the tail. And if we take the special account from which Sir W. Thomsom has drawn reasons for favorably commenting on Tait's theory, we shall certainly find much in Sir John Herschel's narrative to throw doubt on the "sea-bird" theory. For the tail of the comet (regarded as a real entity) swept round like a brandished