242 THE CHARMS OF COUNTRY LIFE.

served, because if the outburst did not take place exactly
on the edge of the sun, as was assumed, there would be
some foreshortening ; and if this were the case the above
velocity would be too low. But take it as it is, and con-
sider if the speed of motion was so enormous at the end
of the flight, where the motive-force was expending itself,
what must it have been at the outset? An approximate
estimate, which is certainly too low, shows it to have
been sufficient to cast any matter denser than mere gas
beyond the sphere of the sun’s attraction right away into
space. Such denser matter is reasonably supposed to be
ejected, along with the hydrogen, from the regions near
the sun’s surface which are occupied by metallic vapours ;
and it has been suggested that meteors may be particles
of matter thus ejected, a suggestion that is borne out by
some chemical characteristics of meteorites which evidence
their probable formation under such conditions as would
exist in the case of a solar eruption like that we have been
considering. And again, the streaming luminosities seen
during solar eelipses, and which form the most mysterious
part of the corona, may possibly, Professor Young sug-
gests, “find their origin and explanation in such events.”

Upon the nature of the stupendous force which pro-
duces the ejections, we can form no satisfactory idea. One
student of the phenomena, fully qualified to form an
opinion thereupon—if observation can give such a qualifi-
cation—suggests that the repulsion may have an electrical
origin; another equally qualified theorist would regard
the ejections more in the nature of volcanic eructations.
There appears indeed to be a connexion between the
eruptions and solar spots; we might hence suppose the
spots to be the orifices from which the discharges take
place; but this does not seem to be the case, and what
the actual relation may be has yet to be established.
Besides the impelling outward force that produces the
jets, and plumes, and glowing fountains, there are clearly
other forces at work above the solar surface, manifested by
the distortions and convolutions which the ejected thongs
of flame exhibit. Those would appear to be of the nature
of currents like our winds, sometimes acting gently and
continuously in one direction, and at other times furiously,
producing cyclones and tornadoes upon an enormous scale.
Every thing upon the sun takes place upon a solar scale of
grandeur thoroughly to appreciate which we have need of
powers of conception almost superhuman.

It was anticipated that this explosion would be answered
on the earth by a disturbance of the magnetic needle,
because a strange outburst that occurred on the sun in
1859, to which the recent one was probably analogous,
was synchronous with an extraordinary deflection which
was common to all the needles in the magnetic observa-
tory at Greenwich. The registers were inspected with
a view to detecting a repetition of the coincidence, but
though they showed that there was a general disturbance
of the needles upon the day in question (Sept. 7), there
was no striking dislocation exactly coincident, as in
1859, with the solar eruption. There was, however, a fine
display of aurora borealis in the evening of the same
day, and, as we explained in an article on that phenomenon
in our May (1871) number, these displays appear to be
related to magnetic perturbations on the earth and surface
disturbances on the sun. Whether the aurora was in the
instance before us a response to the solar paroxysm

THE CHARMS OF COUNTRY LIFE.

TRANSLATED FROM HORACE, EPODES II. 2.
A CITY BANKER’S SOLILOQUY.

“ Hx’s blest who, far from commerce and its ways,

Like men of ancient days,

With his own teams paternal acres tills,
Stranger to bonds and bills.

No ruthless trumpet summons him to arms,
No raging sea alarms.

He shuns the Forum and those gates of pride
Where men in power reside.

So is he free to bid the well-grown vine
Her poplar spouse entwine ;

So pruning out each worthless branch and shoot,
To graft a finer fruit.

His lowing herds in winding vale that stray
From far he can survey ;

Now honey drain in cleanly pots to keep,
Now shear his helpless sheep.

Ever as autumn rears above the ground
His head with fruitage crown’d,

His pears he gladly plucks, and grapes that vie
With robe of royal dye,

Tributes to thee Priapus’, and to thee,
Guard of his boundary °.

He loves neath antique oak repose to take,
On close-grown turf to make
His couch, twixt steepy banks while glides the
flood,
Birds twitter in the wood,
And brawling brook-fed from the brimming well
Lulls him with slumbrous spell.

But when mid pouring rains and drifting snows, |
Jove bids the year to close, |

He drives the savage boar by dogs beset
Headlong against the net;

Or for the greedy thrush his finer threads
On treacherous twigs he spreads ;

Or traps the stranger * crane and timorous hare,
Right welcome to the snare.

Who mid such scenes but must forgetful prove
Of pangs that torture love ?

But if chaste wife were mine my home to share;
For children sweet to care ;

(Like fleet Apulian’s spouse with sun-brown’d

face,

Or Sabine’s softer grace)

To pile the hearth soon as her lord returns
With wood that brightest burns ;

To drain the stores their udders that distend
From goats in wattles penn’d ;

1 The garden god.
2 Horace names Silvanus: we do not know why. Ter-

remains to be proved, or disproved, by the analogous cases | minus was the boundary god

"| which will surely present themselves in the future.

3 As being a migratory bird.