The object of the following treatise is to furnish the possessors of ordinary telescopes with plain directions for their use, and a list of objects for their advantageous employment.

None but an eye-witness of the wonder and glory of the heavens can thoroughly understand how much they lose by description, or how inadequate an idea of them can be gathered in the usual mode, from books and lectures. It is but the narrative of the traveller instead of the direct impression of the scene. To do justice to this noble science,—to appreciate as we ought the magnificent testimony which it bears to the eternal Power and Godhead of Him “who by His excellent wisdom made the heavens,” we must study it, as much as may be, not with the eyes of others, but with our own.

This, however, is no easy matter: nor is the want of a telescope the only difficulty. Instruments quite sufficient for the student's purpose are far less expensive than formerly; a trifling outlay will often procure them, of excellent quality, at second-hand; and many are only waiting to be called into action. But a serious obstacle remains to the inexperienced possessor. How is he to use his telescope in a really improving way? What is he to look for? And how is he to look for it? For want of an answer, many a good instrument is employed in a desultory and uninstructive manner, or consigned to dust and inactivity.

If the Solar System had comprised in itself the whole material creation, it would alone have abundantly sufficed to declare the glory of God, and in our brief review of its greatness and its wonder we have seen enough to awaken the most impressive thoughts of His power and wisdom. But that system is but as a single drop in the ocean. What boundary may be set to creation we know not, but we can trace it far enough to perceive that, as far as our senses are concerned, it cannot be distinguished from absolute infinity: and in leaving our Sun and his attendants in the background, we are only approaching more amazing regions, and fresh scenes will open upon us of inexpressible and awful grandeur. We are now to contemplate not one Sun, but thousands and myriads: — not a planetary system of subordinate globes, but aggregations of Suns; — pairs, groups, galaxies of Suns — “the host of heaven,” — all independent in unborrowed splendour, yet many evidently, and all by clear implication, bound together by the same universal law which keeps the pebble in its place upon the surface of the earth, and guides the falling drop of the shower, or the mist of the cataract.