Here, then, are two groups of stars, clearly distinguished by their configuration--two _constellations_, for such is the scientific name given to all the stellar groups. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--The Great Bear and Little Bear.] It has been the fortune of the first of these two groups to strike the eye of the most indifferent observer from the remotest antiquity; and its likeness to a _quadriga_ early procured it the name of a _car_ or _chariot_. For those Christians who pleased themselves in studding the sky with Biblical personages, it is _David's Chariot_. This species of apotheosis was borrowed from the Pagans. They placed in the skies their divinities, their demigods, their heroes, and the principal facts and stories of their mythology. For the Greeks and Romans the "Chariot of David" was the female of the Bear, an ursa, or ἀρκτὸς. Whence came this transfiguration? Listen to the fanciful old myth. * * * * * Callisto was the most beautiful of the daughters of the King Lycaon. Jupiter, who may appropriately be styled the "Don Juan" or "Lovelace" of the heathen Olympus, fell in love with her; and she bore him a son, named Arcas, who gave his name to Arcadia, that land of song and fable, groves and streams, where Lycaon exercised his sovereign sway. Juno, the queen of heaven, and wife of the so-called king of gods and men, transported by her jealous rage, changed Callisto into a she-bear; who, one day, would have been unwittingly slain by Arcas, if Jupiter, opportunely appearing on the scene, had not metamorphosed the hunter into another animal, _Ursa Minor_, or the Little Bear. According to this myth, the Little Bear will be but a transformation of the former, who was the Great Bear, or, before all and above all, _the_ Bear. It is somewhat surprising, according to certain writers, that Homer should refer to only one of these constellations:-- Ἄρκτοιθ᾿ ἥν καὶ ἄμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν.[2] (The Bear, which men the Chariot also name). But the learned commentators who have censured the poet for making no distinction between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, probably never looked at the starry vault with an attentive eye; otherwise, like all the world, they might have convinced themselves that the seven stars, _septem triones_ (whence the word "septentrion"), forming the beautiful constellation, which, undoubtedly, long before Homer's time, was known as "The Bear" or "The Celestial Chariot," were all that could be seen. With a single exception, these stars are of the second magnitude--that is to say, they, so far as regards their brilliancy, rank next to the most brilliant stars of the firmament. The least conspicuous star in the group--one of the third magnitude--occupies the base of the pole of the Celestial Chariot, or of the Bear's tail; it is the fourth star counting from the extremity of the tail. On celestial charts, it is particularised by the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet, δ (delta).