“Ye sacred Muses, with whose beauty fir’d, My soul is ravish’d, and my brain inspir’d; Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear, Would you your poet’s first petition hear; Give me the way of wand’ring stars to know: The depths of heav’n above, and earth below. Teach me the various labours of the moon, And whence proceed th’ eclipses of the sun. Why flowing tides prevail upon the main, And in what dark recess they sink again. What shakes the solid earth, what cause delays The summer nights, and shortens winter days— Happy the man, who, studying nature’s laws, Through known effects can trace the secret cause.” Footnote 40: The lines here referred to were written about eight years after Sir Isaac Newton’s death. Voltaire supposes an apotheosis of Newton to have taken place, among the planets personified by some of the deities of the heathen mythology. Thus ascribing intelligence to the stars, he considers them, by a poetical fiction, as being in the _confidence_ of the Most High—the _true_ God; and to those subordinate deities, or, perhaps, a fancied superior order of angelic beings, the poet makes his figurative address; which may be thus rendered in English verse:— Ye confidents of the Most High, Ye everlasting lights! Who deck, with your refulgent fires, The scene of godlike rights! Whose wings o’erspread the glorious throne Whereon your Lord is plac’d, That Lord, by whose transcendent pow’r Your borrow’d rays are grac’d; Speak out, bright orbs of heaven’s expanse! And frankly let us know: To the exalted NEWTON’S name, Can you refuse to bow? ----- Astronomy has not only engaged the attention of multitudes of illustrious men, of every age and nation, but it has been patronized by great and enlightened princes and states; cultivated by men of genius and learning, of all ranks and professions; and celebrated by historians and poets.