RISING AND SETTING OF THE SUN AND STARS. 23

above or sinking below the horizon of the spectator, is easily explained by the fact of this daily rotation.

That we are without any sense of such motion is no evidence against its taking place. Apart from more scientific reasons, there are certain well-established facts, which place such a rotation, though we are not conscious of it, beyond all doubt. A short time since, for example, some friends of the writer's were on board a vessel in St. Catherine's Docks, busily employed in arranging packages for others about to embark for a foreign shore, when, after some time, coming on deck, they found the ship was being towed by a steam-boat, and that, not aware of the circumstance, they were then opposite Greenwich. Some even went on to Gravesend, from the difficulty of disembarking, in consequence of the progress of the vessel, to which they were before insensible.

In like manner, the aeronaut travels, perhaps, eighty miles an hour, without a sense of motion, unless he can judge of it from some objects within view. While the balloon ascends, it appears to him as if the earth were sinking beneath him; and as he returns from his aerial trip, as if it rose to welcome his coming. We shall err, therefore, if we decide merely from appearances. Nor

24

SUNRISE IN ITALY.

should it be forgotten, that we are sensible of motion when there are objects to resist, or when they are approached or left behind; but here, as all things move with us, and that with perfect smoothness and freedom from whatever is opposing or jarring, we are without any ordinary means of bringing before us the fact.

What a splendid object is the rising sun! It is so in our own land, yet it is still more so when the traveller in Italy beholds the morning dawn, and the ascending orb shedding over the Sabine mountains a rich glow, gradually softening, as it becomes more distinct, into purple, lining with gold a few fleecy clouds which strew his path, and at length pouring a stream of the brightest saffron over all the eastern sky. Even in our northern climate, the tints that gild the clouds are as rich and varied as can well be imagined; but the deep purple distances of the horizon, and the gleaming yellow of the firmament, in Italy, far surpass ours in hue and splendour, and produce that lucid atmosphere so long noticed and admired. "In the contemplation of this beautiful and ever-varying phenomenon," says Eustace, "we drove on till we reached the first post, and then enjoyed the glories of the rising sun, till, concealing himself in a 'den-fringed cloud, as in a chariot, he darted his rays

ehind it, and set the whole firmament in a blaze."